Shadow Priest feels like a bad version of Warlock does it get better later on?
I’m level 41 with this character Priest has always been my least favorite class but it’s one of the only one’s I don’t have a max level now so I’m trying to power through it.
Does it need a rework? or does it come together at higher levels ?
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I enjoy SP @70 quite a bit! The AOE isn’t as fun/intuitive as other caster classes (IMO) but that’s my only real complaint with it.
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This is just my opinion, but if Priest has always been your least favorite class, perhaps that’s why it doesn’t feel good to you.
Keep in mind also that at lower levels, a class doesn’t always have its full toolkit and may feel a bit incomplete until around the 60-70 bracket.
Shadow Priest at level 70 feels great to me—far better than the Legion/BFA mandatory voidform iteration. But I’m also a Priest main, so…
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No it doesn’t really get better. Shadow as a spec has been limping along since Blizzard gutted voidform.
It’s been a patchwork spec that gets constant reworks because Blizz can’t decide on a direction for it.
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I enjoyed the SL iteration of it with the Necrolord build.
Dark Ascension doesn’t do it for me. I can’t say I’m a big fan of the DF changes.
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Problem is that SP takes some time to ramp up damage , and by the time this has happened any grp you are in is already half way thru the next pack of mobs.
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It comes together at max Level, however I will agree with some of the comments here its AoE is not that great… if your like me who love to bomb groups of enemies with Shadows Aparitions and explosions of Shadowflame! lol 
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And here I am thinking Legion Spriest was the only time it felt fun.
Only issue was it was freshly redesigned so it got rebalanced every patch.
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Shadow priest is a lot more fun at level 70.
I have a level 50 shadow priest and it feels kinda lame compared to my level 70 shadow priest. It really feels like its missing part of its rotation.
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You won’t have to worry about that, they get reworked at least once every expansion.
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Personally, I find that the hard cap of 8 for Shadow Crash’s Whispering Shadows talent feels bad in PvE, when there’s more than 8 enemies, I’m unsure if I should start dotting the one’s that don’t have it or just start blasting. And reapplication… depending on your talents you can get Vampiric Touch to last longer on whichever mob you’re attacking, but it’s gonna fall off on all the others. Luckily by the time Shadow Crash is off CD it’s time to reapply the Vampiric Touches, but then you want to hold it sometimes because the pack is almost dead and you won’t have it up for the next one.
I’m sure much more skilled Shadow Priests could give some great advice on playing the spec in PvE content. I found that the playstyle wasn’t for me though.
In PvP I find it really at times, especially when I pop PI and Void Eruption and start blasting and then the CC train comes out on me or I’m suddenly taking a lot more damage than I was a few seconds prior and need to pop dispersion. It makes me laugh.
blizz ran shadow over with the whole nerf train and now it’s just laying on tracks rekt and suffering.
They could at least be humane enough to either fix it up or put it out of it’s misery.
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I deleted my SP and rezzed my lock.
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Since blizzard began the Voidform route with shadow going into Legion, it changed on a fundamental level everything about Shadow in its toolkit and spells and flipped the entire spec on its head.
Shortly after, the developer left be it quit or let go I’m not sure.
Since then, every time shadow has been in the stage of major development, the wow dev in charge left during the development cycle.
This happened midway in BFA I think?
During Shadowlands Beta
And beginning of Dragonflight beta.
So we end up getting half designed and only half baked ideas are implemented before it’s pencils down as it’s time to ship the game.
So essentially, Shadow has been in development hell since the beginning of Legion.
Voidform at its core only excelled in long form and stationary fights. So basically raiding and at high level M+ they got by.
But in PvP, low 5 mans or low level mythic 5 mans and world content be it leveling or max was downright atrocious when you were forced to play with Voidform when it automatically put you into Voidform outside your control.
What typically happens is by the time you build up enough insanity to go into Voidform, it triggers right when the mobs are dead or nearly dead and thus you waste you powered up state moving to the next group of mobs.
Since the Powered up state of Voidform was essentially infinitely scaling, it caused to it base form to be infinitely weaker thus causing you a lot longer time to get anything done. This is why short form content or PvP was awful when dealing with Voidform.
Since then, they made small steps at a time to improve it the way Voidform works and add Dark Ascension (Cataclysm version of Dark Archangel) back allows it to be a bit more predictable yes but also actually effective and not useless the majority of the time.
But with so many conflicting and overlapping spells, shadow has found itself in a state of limbo where devs can’t seem to figure out the best direction to take shadow in as it seems anyone with enough shadow knowledge to speak on it leaves the company.
The result is what we have at the current day where there are the foundations of good ideas, but not enough time and effort to make them fully realized.
Shadow seems to also be plagued by a double standard of design philosophy as many reasons given to hold back at giving shadow what many main shadow priest players have requested has been met with a NO followed by reasons ranging from other classes have it already or it impacts PvP in a way they don’t like, like not giving Spectral Guise back (short duration stealth we had in MoP and WoD) because it makes the enemy target frames disappear? Which apparently is enough justification somehow?
Or not getting a displacement ability like Reverse Leap of Faith (we had in shadowlands) or Door of Shadows (had in shadowlands) because at least with Leap of Faith, most people would pick the self displacement version and they didn’t want that to happen.
But then they also gave hunters a group leech ability I think? And mage a group damage absorb ability the same beta update build they gave the reasoning why priests don’t get things is because other players have them… yet mages and hunters get what priests have.
That logic is staggering and clearly shows an indication of a double design standard priest class is held too.
Also our DPS cooldown has a cast time… on a class/spec that is very immobile and easily shut down in PvP with no way to make it instant cast. At least with Dark Archangel in Cata, it was instant cast once you charged it up with Mind Flay damage in Dark Evanglism.
So TL;DR
Priests needs a dedicated and devoted wow developer to spend the time and sit down and really figure out what shadow should be.
Many posts and threats have provided numerous feedback as to how to achieve this, myself included.
Because it’s clear at this point that blizzard needs as much help as they can get.
If anyone is curious as to what my feedback would be, I laid out all my ideas for both current talent trees and a possible direction for Hero Path talent trees going into TWW here…
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So we need to change Shadow Priest and rework it cause you don’t like it at level 41? What is the reason for this post and why isn’t it in Priest chat?
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It does need another rework yes.
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Shadow is weird. I like it, but it can suck to play. It requires ramp up to get going.
Doing dungeons can suck. You have 2 aoe’s.
Shadow crash with a 20 second cool down. Cast it and watch the tank pull everything out of the area. Only other aoe is a weak cast, but instant.
So on long fights, it is more interesting. You can run your full rotation. But quick fights just suck.
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I would say Shadow priest is overall less clunky than all 3 warlock specs at max level. Demonology has a ramp up time and doesn’t have a spammable aoe (but has very good burst aoe, which makes it best in dungeons). Destruction can’t generate soul shards quickly in single target. Affliction has a ramp up time and can’t burst single target damage without dots up. Warlock specs can solo elites easier because of pet tanking.
Make sure to get
- Misery so you never need to cast Shadow Word Pain
- Holy Nova for aoe against weak swarming enemies (die in less than 10 seconds)
- Psychic Link so that when you have your dots up on multiple enemies your single target damage cleaves
- Shadow Crash with Whispering Shadows to apply dots in aoe (because of the cooldown, generally don’t use on weak swarming enemies)
The rest is up to you, but avoid Yogg-Saron, it’s very inconsistent.
edit: I don’t know if it’s considered mandatory, but I strongly recommend Void Torrent to reduce ramp up time when you start fights with no insanity
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Shadow gives me the shadow dot fantasy without the excessive number of dots that come with Affliction.
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I seen a few spriest top charts in dps and overall damage on heroic raid farm.