I recently boosted a priest, and have been loving all the specs especially holy and shadow. I’m trying to understand why so many people have gripes about shadow. Coming from mage, it feels plenty complex, smooth, powerful, tanky, and has tons of utility. With the Shadowy Insight talent, it feels as busy/proc-y as a fire mage.
I used to main a priest in vanilla/bc, and this feels much smoother than I remember back then, not that that means much.
Is it mostly that people just miss the shadow orb system I missed out on, or do people feel that it’s just in a bad “nerf phase” right now? Some people complain about the flow of the void form mechanic, but it seems as fluid mage mechanics in my experience, and at least equally fun. Again, coming from a mage who plays all 3 specs, shadow does not feel weak or too simplified to me, and I’m planning on maining priest in SL.
I know this is not a popular opinion, but I’m just enjoying it so much, and would hate to see big comprehensive changes to shadow, what are your thoughts?
Well… you can take time to try it better… long ramps up, not getting invited to Mythic+ because of the lack of utility and be the worst “DPS” spec of the game on every aspect of it other than in Raid with long fights where we do the normal dps all other specs do without waiting for a ramp up is why all Spriest are against the Mechanics of Void Form. and don’t forget the 3 buttons rotation that no one like.
Yeah, being okay with it’s rotation and little ole spells is fine… but the quality just isn’t there.
I like the spec also… as in… i like how the rotation feels and the flow of what i need to do, that’s all great. it’s the fact everything is dead by the time we are ready to pop off… or the fact the big damage really isn’t there in the majority of content.
But no it’s not complex or powerful.
At least you’re enjoying yourself, your perception is your reality.
While I could see why some people might feel the need to get into void form ASAP and stay there, as a newcomer, it more feels like something to go in and out of freely, kind of like a fire mage’s ramp up and down.
The ramp has only felt long to me occasionally, and only while questing, but regular mobs while questing are so squishy.
I think it would make more sense to me if people had more specific critiques, but it seems similar to how people often talk about ele shaman, that “people just think of it as the worst, and it is”. I suspect that if the dps numbers of shadow priest were buffed, there’d be less dissent towards voidform, and we all know that specs get tuned up and tuned down all the time. I
Its okay. You are also likely doing beginner content or world quests that have been nerfed and outscaled for a whole year now. Try to fight any decent hp mob, do visions, or literally anything that is considered “difficult” and you’ll see why people hate shadow priest, lol. Also while you like Shadow insight, its not optimal. Fine if you like it, but you’re not doing as much dps as you could be that’s just fact.
Complex? Eh. Reapply dots, mind flay. Go into void form, void bolt. Repeat.
Smooth? No. No voidform is ever the same, some go longer some don’t. Lucid dream will or won’t proc during it. If ANYTHING stuns or stops you in void form you are ruined, even if you try to disperse, you lose out on unbelievable amounts of damage. The time it takes to get back into void form require a crit that even when you have 3 azerites and high crit, is not 100%.
Tanky? Not sure where this ones coming from? Their heals are sub par, vampiric embrace solo heals are about as good as fire armor. 3 Shadow mends and you’re OOM. You don’t have any mobility. Try out warlock and you’ll see why they are actually a “tanky” caster.
Utility? Where? What do you consider utility? You cannot use fear, as it pulls extra. All the rest of your crowd control can be broken by damage. You have no out of combat crowd control. Mind control is not optimal, and forces aggro to you EVEN if you Fade. Your interrupt is twice the length of CS. They provide fortitude, but so does any other spec of priest.
Basically, you’ll come to find you can likely do more dps in Disc spec for all content until you min/max your shadow priest. Even then, you’re now talking about high level content and mages are without any argument, better in every conceivable way in hard content.
But if you enjoy it, don’t let anyone stop you. Just know not wanting a rework is a minority voice among shadow priest, even the best of priests desire reworks. But a rework isn’t likely anyway as even with a vocal majority, no one is being listened to.
Where do you consider shadows ramp to end, because it’s not once you enter voidform, it’s after you leave your first voidform, a voidform that will ideally have been going for at least 40 seconds.
And if it didn’t, your damage will be awful.
Frankly, there has been comprehensive and detailed feedback in the past, there is elsewhere and there still is now, but to expect people to write that sort of thing out time and time again beyond just venting frustrations is difficult.
You’ve just started playing shadow, you have no gear, no expectations, and no experience having to deal with the numerous shortcomings the spec has. That’s not an insult, we all started somewhere, but please understand the “smoothness” of the rotation has never been a major concern when it comes to voidform.
Judging by the gear on your mage, you’re unlikely to ever really care about the issues shadow has in the aspects of the game you enjoy, that’s fine, but it doesn’t make them any less problematic for the people that do.
Meh, let’s not jump to conclusions. Though there has been fair critique, it’s not the majority of what’s been said over the past few weeks. That critique is also mostly on the Alpha forums, not here. If you were to just skim the top of the priest forums I can see how you’d come to that conclusion.
“While I could see why some people might feel the need to get into void form ASAP and stay there, as a newcomer, it more feels like something to go in and out of freely, kind of like a fire mage’s ramp up and down.”
Keeps posting on his mage, says we have no specific critiques and it would be fine if there were big numbers? Trolling is the less insulting conclusion.
I mean, come on, are any of those things objectively true?
I like my Shadow Priest just because it’s my main and I’m sentimentally attached. Been playing this one character for years now. But pretty much all of the other comments here are valid critiques in my opinion. To reach optimal performance can take a minute. As Hpellipsis noted, this is after your first voidform ends, which hopefully left you with plenty of lingering insanity, and hopefully you can get into another voidform before those stacks run out. At that point you can do fairly consistent damage for the rest of combat, provided you’re very careful. But you also need to keep shield up on the tank, interrupt whatever you can, and dispel/purify sometimes. So your attention will be divided, and doing those other tasks comes with the risk of loosing precious buffs before you get into your next voidform. Meaning you’re about half as useful as most other DPS specs in some settings (if we’re measuring usefulness purely as an expression of damage output per second, as so many do).
I remember liking the shadow orb system, but I can’t remember the particulars of why. I think it was just far more forgiving in terms of how long you could keep them banked and you knew what you were getting once they were spent on spells, so you could do combat with a bit more confidence.
If you’re curious to see how the spec has played in different patches, you can search YouTube for “Shadow Priest 8.3” to get a load of results showing you ideal scenarios for how the spec performs in M+ or raids, and then do the same search for different patches to see how it used to work in the past, and you might be able to observe some of the things people have grievances about. But if you’re primary interests are questing/social/RP or any other non M+/raid gameplay, then these things are probably never going to matter to you.
With Lingering Insanity and Chorus, is the end really VF’s end?
You will reach your full DPS potential when Chorus/LI procs (or when you enter the next VF), but at that point you had close to zero benefit from LI/Chorus, while up to that point you dealt supbar damage.
As long as mechanics like LI/Chorus exist, i’d say your dps “ramps up” (averages out) over the duration of LI/Chorus.
I think in the interests of making a clean demonstrative point about the value of COI and LI, leaving the nuance out in this specific case is fine.
You are of course correct, the reality is that the first minute of shadow’s rotation sucks, and then the rest is a high sustained average, so the longer the fight goes on, the less % of time was spent in that sucky first minute and the better the overall.
I’m not familiar enough with shadow. I tried it while leveling and it felt lack luster to me. The waiting to get void form was super annoying to me and slow. I don’t remember shadow from before so this is all I know. I will say it just seems annoying to have to dps to get the big dps form for a few min and in smaller fights it seems like you’re not going to be able to use it
I am glad you are enjoying it. However, at your gear level, which I am assuming is very similar to your 420 mage, you will never see the problems that the class brings.
But…that’s not the underlying problem of this topic. I fear Blizzard will look at threads like these and say “See! We did a good job on the class because people think it feels great!”, while stroking their own ego to double down on what is, currently, the worst version of the spec.
Their justification for continuing the current course…is that players like yourself, that is thriving with the bottom of the barrel content difficulty that the class can ‘succeed’ in, deems it acceptable to continue as is.
Simply put, in a period that is vital to getting the spec changed for the better, your topic is creating dissonance to the goal of getting the right feedback to the developers.
I’m no theory crafter and I’m certain there are many, many people around who can give much more concise and eloquent reasons than I, but here’s my 2 cents anyway (as a long time Shadow Priest who really wants the spec to be good in Shadowlands)…
Voidform is the only place where any real damage is possible so no, it’s not “something to go in and out of freely” it’s something SPs need to be in as often, and as long, as possilbe.
Shadow has no “burst”. Applying DoTs then waiting to cast enough spells to get into VF so you can actually do some damage just doesn’t feel good. The rotation flows well, but not having anything to “come out of the gate” with (so to speak) and waiting nearly a full minute to see any real damage output while everyone else is 3 miles ahead on the track doesn’t feel good.
For general content (questing, low level dungeons, etc.) Shadow is sluggish. Mobs die quickly and there is no “real” rotation.
For raids and M+ the spec is left behind by every other DPS spec because it has zero burst and such a long ramp time. The spec is also way too dependent on gear and borrowed power. If you’re lucky and get the best Azerite and Curruptions you’ll likely be fine. But if you’re like me and have had zero luck with gear you’re basically SOL.
I love Shadow. I played it from Wrath to Legion, played this Priest exclusively as my main since TBC (with Holy being my main in TBC and Disc as main at the beginning of BFA, then going back to Holy later on). I want to play Shadow. I’m glad you’re having fun with it. But I’d ask you to gear up and do some M+ (higher level keys, at least 12 and upward) and some current Heroic/Mythic raid bosses (even just the first few on Mythic) then come back and let us know how you feel.