Shadow Priest Feedback

In Development Ghosts of K'aresh PTR
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Below is my initial reaction to changes on the 11.2 PTR for Shadow Priests. Overall this patch has lots of design changes of how we deal damage but realistically gameplay wise the changes are quite tame, which makes sense for a mid-expansion rework.

Questions

Below is the list of questions the community has with unclear interactions or changes coming in 11.2.

Problems Ignored

While the list of changes is overall pretty positive I was disappointed that a few of the issues the spec has went unaddressed this patch. Below are the big ones I feel still could use adjustments.

Pathing Issues

Below is the list of current pathing issues I noticed with the talent tree redesign and where these nodes feel out of place in their current design and/or place on the tree in general. All of these options are also difficult to take/path into in their current state.

Talent Changes

In this section I’m going to quickly touch on the changes and give my reaction to them.

Dark Ascension

  • This talent still existing feels extra out of place now that Mind Spike was removed since our only filler spell is now not buffed with this cooldown, particularly with Surge of Insanity procs.

Subservient Shadows

Madness Weaving

  • Feels pretty lackluster given its place on the talent tree.

  • Weird way to add damage to the spec

  • The spec already likes mastery so its functionality feels misplaced and is not very clear to the average player.

Death’s Torment

Deathspeaker

  • losing the movement global is a bit disappointing, wish we still had the proc version as a choice node
  • Really begins to highlight how weak Shadow Word: Death is baseline
  • While this talent on live does interact with Depth of Shadows this current iteration does not. Without adjusting that talent as well we have this weird zone between 35% and 20% health where we have different execute interactions which makes things feel confusing.

Shadow Crash

Descending Darkness

  • while optimizing Shadow Crash damage does give us yet another form of AoE you now have a conflicted sense of using it solely for DoT spreading or Damage. I personally liked not feeling pressured to use it on cooldown but rather being able to mostly just save it for DoTing purposes, and now this is a bit conflicting.
  • On fresh targets DoTs are applied after Shadow Crash deals damage so you lose out on the Mastery modifier here which feels bad, another reason why making this a damage spell is awkward.

Void Volley

  • not using its own keybind is awesome
  • this spell is just super cool and I love it

Idol of N’Zoth

Idol of Y’Shaarj

  • This really has nothing to do with pets and does feels out of place on the tree for what it was reworked into.
  • The pathing talents are all pet related, and this talent proccing haste emphasizes a known issue with the game not updating pet melee-swing time in real-time after you get a haste proc. Pets update on a slower interval (roughly ~3 seconds) which makes this node feel even more out of place.
  • feels very feast or famine gameplay which is not typical of this spec. Would be cooler to have the haste tied to our pet cooldown and the loss of haste happen after it despawns as an example.
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I’d like to post my feedback for Blizzard here as well. Hopefully we can consolidate feedback under this thread.

Shadow Crash - thank you for increasing it to 2 charges and lowering the cooldown. Some people dislike the reduction of the dot application to 6 targets, but I understand why the tradeoff was made and think it is worth it.

I like Void Volley. It reminds me of the Pally ability Light’s Hammer. I also like that it doesn’t take up another keybind - please continue in this direction with design in general! That said, Void Volley is not a periodic effect, so wouldn’t it benefit from Dark Ascension? It currently doesn’t seem to.

Descending Darkness is a good talent. I like it because it gives Shadow a bit of burst AOE, which it does need.

Shattered Psyche seems like it takes too long to ramp up to full stacks (12 stacks)…it takes basically 9 GCDs of Flay channel time to fully buff a Mind Blast. But at this point, my Mind Blast has a cooldown of 7.1 seconds at 26% haste…I’ll almost never get to full stacks of Shattered Psyche. In fact, getting to full stacks might mean I’m flaying too much and not using Mind Blast on cooldown like I should be. And I’m not sure if you want a playstyle that seems to incentivize sitting on Mind Blast for an extra second or two just to get full stacks of Shattered Psyche.

I’m a bit perplexed at how the talents are arranged/grouped. Talent should probably be a little more clustered around distinct “nexuses” of damage profiles. They mostly are, but I think it can be improved. For example, talents that purely boost SW: Pain and Vampiric Touch are kind of everywhere. Compare the locations: Instilled Doubt is on the right side of the tree, Maddening Touch sits on the left, and Screams of the Void is way down below. All three of these talent choices boost Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch damage. Since they all do basically the same thing, they should probably be grouped together.

I’m a bit perplexed at the number of 2-point talents near the middle of the tree (Row 7). They seem to gatekeep the bottom half of the tree pretty hard.

It would be great if we could get a tooltip update for Shadowy Insight. I would really like to know what the chance is to reset Mind Blast’s cooldown, and not knowing that makes me feel like I just don’t have enough information to make a good talent choice decision.

Design-wise, I’m seeing that the bottom of the tree kinda does a lot of the same thing when it comes to damage profiles. Inescapable torment is basically about cleave with some simultaneous priority target damage. So is Idol of Yogg-Saron and Void Volley. Same damage profiles for each talent, but a different flavor for each. I’m just thinking one of these should be reworked to have a bit of a different damage profile so that we can have a bit more variety.

I appreciate the move toward de-cluttering the rotation by removing the proc from Deathspeaker. And ooh boy do I like it raising the “execute threshold” of Shadow Word: Death to 35%.

Lastly, I think I’m going to miss Unfurling Darkness. It’s very useful in PVP and a huge quality of life when doing Delves, world quests, and other casual content. I would like to request that you please bring it back.

Thank you, I’ll post more if/when it comes to mind.

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Ya,

I like the new N’zoth capstone but it’s a bit unclear.

Void Volly is baller.

S Crash having 2 charges is the bee’s knees.

Generally I’m liking Spriest overall here. I’m reserving the bulk of my thoughts until I’ve gotten into an instance/group to see how it goes.

Given our problems with Spriest at the start of TWW tho, this is a good sign.

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I would really appreciate it if the top of the spec tree could be looked at. Four utility nodes that early is crazy and not something other specs have to deal with. Lots of these changes are aimed at the capstones and other lower nodes but nothing changed at the top. Still many 2 point nodes too which makes it kinda feel like you don’t get to pick as many of the cool talents at the bottom of the tree. The bottom of the tree feels almost bloated now with so many talents and the top has stayed the same with utility I think should be baseline and you can move some of the new talents in their place.

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Dark Thoughts

  • Seems kinda whatever, VW probably likes it but Archon already barely cares about Mind Blast as it is

Death’s Torment

  • Glad Death is getting something, that spell is incredibly sad on live
  • Helps prop up some of the more fun talents like Mindbender/Inescapable Torment

Madness Weaving

  • Making the mastery minigame more impactful is cool
  • Mastery as a stat doesn’t need to be more powerful than it already is
  • Distorted Reality still exists so the mastery minigame is a meme

Void Volley

  • Neat idea
  • Void Torrent is already super powerful and included in every single build, it doesn’t need to be stronger, I’d love to sometimes not spec into it

Subservient Shadows

  • Making the Mindbender side of things better is cool, those talents have been dead for too long (thanks DF S3 nerfs + aura buffs not including them)

Phantom Menace + Instilled Doubt

  • Making crit better is cool
  • Making DoTs better is cool
  • Cool

Descending Darkness

  • Seems like it’s meant to sort of replace Unfurling Darkness’ gameplay, but it’s just moving it from one button that it shouldn’t be tied to (Vampiric Touch) to a different button it also shouldn’t be tied to (Shadow Crash)

Dark Evangelism

  • Was boring before, is boring now

Deathspeaker

  • I like the procs, losing those sucks
  • Increasing the execute range threshold is lame. 35% is way too early in a fight, it means you’re in execute for way too long for it to be able to actually be super impactful. This is already an issue with Twist of Fate being active so early, and other classes also get their execute effects at 35%. Making it 20% across the board again and buffing the execute effects to compensate would be better

Idol of Y’shaarj

  • I’m one of like 2 people on the planet who liked Whispers in the Dark, so it’s neat to see it back
  • Why is this a capstone talent, it’s not something you play around BECAUSE SNAPSHOTTING DOESN’T EXIST ANYMORE
  • Why is this the capstone in the pet section of the tree

Idol of N’zoth

  • Seems to add way too much insanity when we already have too much to make the mastery minigame interesting as it is
  • Doesn’t really change much, you just press the good buttons in order to generate stacks which gives you resources to press the good buttons more, restricting how good those good buttons can actually be

Shadow Crash

  • Thanks for at least lowering the number of targets it affects
  • Get rid of it instead, I want to press my Vampiric Touch button
  • I don’t want to press this on ST ever again, please stop it
  • 2 charges don’t actually fix the things people are crying about, they just haven’t figured it out yet
  • Being picked on ST would be REALLY BAD because it deletes any opportunity cost for our AoE, which is already way too low on opportunity cost as it is

Mind Spike

  • Removing it entirely instead of having Flay transform into Spike during Dark Ascension is a bit strange, could’ve sort of killed 2 birds with 1 stone there (remove Spike from the tree + make Dark Ascension actually do something)

Tormented Spirits

  • Good, now it can maybe actually do something on low target counts without being completely stupid on high target counts

Unfurling Darkness

  • Sad to see it go. The gameplay of it was nice.
  • Gave us back the movement GCD that Misery takes away (on ST, on AoE it’s still less mobility than if Misery didn’t exist)
  • Shouldn’t have been tied to Vampiric Touch but instead been its own ability, because it did kinda ruin what little DoT gameplay was left on ST

Archon set bonuses:
I don’t particularly like Archon as it is, and this seems to make it more resource flooded which I also don’t like. Visually the Halos are really cool and the set bonus has some gameplay impact, so that’s neat I guess.

VW set bonuses:
Why does Void Blast’s cast time get reduced? It’s already equal to the GCD, so going lower does nothing. If the reduction also affects the GCD then sure it does something, but reducing the GCD below the floor of 0.75 (which this would often do) is bad and should not be a thing. The floor exists for a reason and is too low already if anything.
Has practically 0 gameplay impact, you already wanted to press Void Blast as much as possible.

Unaddressed issues:

  • Misery still exists
    – This being completely mandatory is STUPID
    – I play a DoT spec because I want to cast my DoTs, deleting one of them is lame
    – Removes an instant cast every 18 seconds per target, hurting mobility
    – Should AT LEAST have a choice node that we pick on 1-3 targets or so where we can manage SW:P just fine
  • Distorted Reality
    – Ruins the mastery minigame and is primarily played by the hero tree where the minigame would be the most impactful
    – Should never ever be used on ST, this should be limited to AoE/Council fights where it actually adds to gameplay instead of detracting from it
  • Psychic Link
    – Being our only/primary source of AoE means that our spread cleave and stacked AoE (and ST) are tied together incredibly closely which is a nightmare to balance
    – Our gameplay doesn’t change on AoE because we don’t need to really manage our DoTs and our ST rotation is how we deal AoE damage
  • Silence
    – Silence is effectively a choice node against Mental Fortitude which is pretty lame, because it also means we never ever get to pick Silence rank 2 or Psychic Horror
    – Silence is not strong enough in PvE to warrant the long CD, make it a choice node with a regular ranged interrupt with a 24 sec CD
  • Idols
    – They still kinda do nothing which is disappointing for the capstones of our talent tree
  • Power Infusion/Twins of the Sun Priestess
    – Delete PI or at least Twins, I beg
    – I’d rather fully give away my PI than have to tie my CD usage to another person’s
    – I’d even rather not have PI exist as an external at all
  • Void Eruption
    – Voidform lasts way too long already, causing a lot of the issues with Shadow in easy content (like low keys)
    – Every patch it seems like you add something that makes it last even longer
    – Make it shorter so it can actually be good for burst? We’ve had this with a bunch of other CDs in the past like Breath of Sindragosa, Berserk and Xuen
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A choice talent between Shadow Crash and Mind Sear would be good

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The good

Void Volley. Fun addition to Void Torrent, cool visual, feels impactful. It’s also a more controllable movement GCD compared to Deathspeaker, so i take it.

Deathspeaker → Death’s Torment and N’zoth is a fitting row, although N’zoth stack generation seems confusing.

Mastermind and Instilled Doubt. Making crit better is a good alternative. Haste/Mastery has been the default choice since forever…

Mind Spike removal. To me Shadow has always been about Mind Flay, so i’m just glad it’s gone again.

The odd

One point outgoing talents like Voidtouched, Mental Decay/Shattered Psyche, Mind Devourer, Dark Thoughts, Dark Evangelism and Phantasmal Pathogen feel odd… Their strength doesn’t equal the path restriction going along with them.

Y’shaarj. Feels out of place in the pet column. Also seems numerically very weak.

Subservient Shadows buffs practically all minions. Shadowfiend/Mindbender, Yogg-Saron, and C’thun. The primariy value is the latter, followed by Yogg. It feels out of place on the left, because the pets are too weak.w

The bad

All the utility nodes in the beginning. Shadow is the only spec left that has to invest talent points into utility. Make them baseline to shadow, move some above mentioned odd pathers into their place (e.g. Voidtouched, Dark Evangelism, Mental Decay, Mind Devourer), and be done with it.

Dark Ascension should go alongside Mind Spike. It serves no purpose without it, as it does not buff Mind Flay.

Our class tree still needs a revision. It’s been practically untouched since it’s implementation.

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Seems like only half the suggestions made about Shadow Crash were taken, while doing the exact opposite of the others. Don’t tie DoTs to SC. We need a different way to spread DoTs, and 6 at a time will suck, even with two charges. Yes, we could re-target another mob and use it again, but the entire point is to have one charge on CD to use for multiple pulls. Using both charges just to DoT 9 targets so we can be competitive in AoE is rediculous. Especially when you have other classes that have basically unlimited AoE capabilities without having to spread DoTs.

Remove Shadow Crash and replace it with an uncapped Mind Sear. Make it so Mind Sear will only spread DoTs if the current target is afflicted with SW:P and VT, but still allow it to be castable on a friendly target with no spreading of DoTs. Diminishing returns on Mind Sear’s damage beyond 8 targets, but still allow it to spread DoTs to all mobs in a 12 yard range. There. Spriest AoE is fixed.

Also, can we please get rid of the fart cloud now? Or at least give us some different shadow looks? I like the old blue raven Shadow Form from WotLK, personally.

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This was honestly the most heartbreaking thing to read in the patch notes. One of the best, most underrated talents in the whole tree. It will be sorely missed.

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I think you guys are cooking with this for sure. Here are some initial thoughts:

Silence and Dispersion still being both in the spec tree and required is insane at this point. These should just be baseline for Shadow (assuming healer priests really just don’t deserve a kick for some reason).

We should be able to cast while in dispersion - or at the very least our cooldowns should be paused while in dispersion. What we have now is archaic and there isn’t a good justification for it. Mages were given a better dispersion in the form of Ice Cold to replace Ice Block, why is ours still what it is?

We still have no mobility. Feathers are pitiful and body and soul is the same exact talent as feathers at the cost of an additional talent point. Would like to see either a buff to feathers (see MoP/WoD feathers) or something like Door of Shadows.

Psychic Link is interesting but it’s problematic and honestly not very fun from the standpoint of both having a stale rotation because our aoe rotation doesn’t change from our single target rotation and our tuning is reliant on Psychic Link. I personally would prefer to have Mind Sear back either in the form of a generator like it was before, or something like putting a spender version of Mind Sear on a target and that target pulses aoe damage at the cost of insanity (like Warlock Phantom Singularity). Also not being able to aoe anything that lives for less than 10 seconds feels terrible.

Not sure if I’m crazy yet but our dot tuning, specifically SW:P seems abysmally low at the moment.

Thank you for removing Mind Spike - it’s not the same, chunky spell that it was Pre-Legion and didn’t feel great to use.

Dark Ascension is still boring (also why does it have a cast time, seriously). I understand the buff to try to compensate for losing Mind Spike, but why not just add Mind Flay to the damage increase like it has in it’s Cataclysm version of Dark Archangel? It still wouldn’t be as exciting, but it would feel just a little less bad to use.

Right now we are able to sustain like 80-100 second Void Forms. This is sick. Very much reminds me of what we had in Legion/BfA, and despite all of my complaints with that version of Shadow, it was actually very fun to play in raid. This is more of an expansion level change, but would love to see the removal of Dark Ascension to focus on Void Form. With a change like Devouring Plague (or a Mind Sear spender?) costing shadow orbs that are generated by various things such as Mind Blast, while having insanity to manage our original style Void Form. I think a change like this would make the spec much more interesting to play while also creating a hybrid of the two versions of Shadow that most people loved to play.

That’s all I have for right now.

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Gotta admit that the changes are decent.
I like mind spike beign deleted. Now you have to delete Dark Ascension aswell. Not to sound salty, but this spell serve no purpose whatsoever, now with spike gone even more.
Instead give us glyph that turns void form visuals into the DA wings.

Now the change im a bit confused with is the shadow crash. Its ever since you guys added dot application to this ability we were screaming for lower cd, better aiming, faster travel time, uncapped dot spread, lowering cd via some mechanic, more charges or straight up remowing this clunky spell and give its dot property to some new ability.

So what we got now is lower cd and two charges. Your changes should have stopped there and the m+ would feel a billion times better than now. The added target count reduction feels like a step backward. If you gonna have to sent both of the charges or predot as we do now…then whats the purpose? Lowering cd is great.
Adding damage talent for crash is another questionable change. Why add more damage to it? Weve already been there. Making it hit hard only forces us to take it for single target - hence your intent of trimming down out rotation will be negated, and for aoe it will make an awkward situation where we will have to predot everything manualy and then sent crash for mastery bonus.
Shadow crash doesnt need to do any damage whatsoever, let us sit it for tactical reasons, plan with it…not yet another button with prio beign “just send it as fast as possible when its off cd”.

Ysharrj is just wierd. As shadow works…making this proc random…so that debuff can line up with our burst is insanely :poop: . Its basicaly unusable as it is now.

Void volley feels realy good.

Edit: deleting unfurling darkness is just bad change imho. It was taken by everone to every kind of pvp content. It qas also goated as leveling talent. It hits hard + helps with dot spread + movement key. And no!! PLEASE! Do not make it a pvp talent…

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As a long-time Shadow Priest main since Legion and a devoted Voidweaver, I’m loving the direction of the 11.2 rework — but there are still key areas where the fantasy, PvP viability, and visual cohesion need improvement.

  1. Void Form visuals are outdated. The purple gas effect no longer represents the power and style of the Void. Either update it or let us fully customize it through glyphs without breaking Void Eruption.
  2. Devouring Plague animation needs a full rework. The random crows feel out of place with the Voidweaver theme. Replace them with entropic energy, rift effects, or something that reflects shadowy corruption rather than undead aesthetics.
  3. Power Word: Shield looks wrong on a Voidweaver. Casting a golden, holy shield while in Voidform or Shadowform breaks immersion. Let Void-themed versions overwrite the visual, or at least give a glyph option.
  4. Shadow Word spells don’t match the Void fantasy. Spells like Pain and Death still feel tied to the “dark priest” theme, not the cosmic Void. They should be visually reworked or renamed to better reflect entropic or void-based power.
  5. Dark Ascension lacks identity. It feels underwhelming both visually and thematically, especially next to Entropic Rift. It needs a stronger visual overhaul or be reimagined as a more fitting burst cooldown for a Void-focused spec.
  6. PvP talents need updates. Shadow is being reworked for PvE but PvP feels left behind. Voidweaver lacks synergy with current PvP talents. Please consider adding Void-specific PvP talents — e.g., something that empowers Entropic Rift, Void Volley, or enhances phase-burst windows.
  7. Dot-centric gameplay needs flexibility. The new rotation encourages burst cycles with Void Blast and Torrent. Let us embrace that style — offer builds with fewer mandatory DoTs and more Void Mage-like synergy.
  8. We want transformation. The Voidweaver spec cries out for more Voidform interactions — like temporary ethereal forms, phasing, or even using Rift mechanics to dodge or trap. Lean into that fantasy.

The rework is promising — the 30s Torrent cooldown and new synergy are great — but the theme, PvP toolkit, and spell identity still need that final polish. Please help Shadow Priest truly become the heir of the Void.

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We are still Priests though, so it makes sense to have consistent visuals for class-wide abilities in particular. Shadowform is a rather striking visual for an individual spec’s identity, but we’re ultimately still Priests at the end of the day. We’re not a different sub-class or anything just because we’re in Shadow spec.

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FWIW this is from Insidious Ire talent. You get the crows when any target has all 3 dots active.

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Yeah unfortunately is still a priest. I only play shadow I don’t like healing but glyphs can solve that problem

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I wish I could not use that talent but I would be a great dps loss

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Yeah I actually hate Insidious Ire for two reasons, one being the ravens we should just be able to have on if we want them and the second being that this talent is just a two point talent that is another version of our mastery. Which I also don’t like because our mastery is the same thing as boomy mastery, and a different flavor of malefic rapture. It isn’t interesting in the slightest.

I have similar problems with the new Madness Weaving talent. It’s just a different flavor of Insidious Ire, inflating the value of our mastery and isn’t interesting in the slightest. And it is another two point node.

There are more interesting ways to incentivize the Devouring Plague mini game than “do this or lose insane amounts of damage.”

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Nothing to add on top of the others, but I do want to add to the pile of people wanting silence and dispersion removed from the talent tree and made baseline.

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Echoing some common feedback, I’d like to highlight an important point for leveling Shadow Priests. Right now, it feels like a lot of the core abilities come a bit late in the talent tree, while utility talents show up pretty early.

Whatever the final changes are, I’d strongly suggest shifting those core abilities to appear earlier in the tree, making them accessible sooner. Then move some of the utility talents a bit further down.

This change would really help new Shadow Priests get a better feel for what the class is truly like, giving them more of their main toolkit as they level up. They’d experience the core gameplay first, and then build on it with utility.

While this is something I notice most with Shadow Priests since it’s my main, I think it’s a valuable point for all classes talent trees across the board.

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For fun, log onto a mage at level 1 and look how many spells you already have before you’re level 20.

Now think how many of those would be talents were that a priest.

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