Shadow Priest Improvements as Hotfixes, Patch-Level Updates and Reworks

Classes Priest
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Hello,

I am Sinsofmany from Ragnaros EU. Just because I've seen some people complaining about level 10 characters around here. :)

Intro

I have played Shadow Priest in multiple expensions and I have seen multiple iterations of the class. I mostly played PVP and some casual-level M+ in BFA, Shadowlands and Dragonflight. DF S2 was (I think) the first time that I reached KS:H and S3 is the first time I am aiming for 3k+. Almost there! :)

The current iteration of Shadow is not optimal, so to say. Mechanically it is okay, just our numbers are really not there. Kind of. There is a lot more potential that could - should - be utilized to make our gameplay more exciting, engaging and to make our damage profile actually usable in a dungeon environment.

I thought about it and came up with a few things that I categorized in Hotfix, Future Patch or Expension Level Update. I have been reading the forums about Shadow for a long time now and since our ideas were never heard, I tried to come up with some (supposedly) easy-to-implement solutions that can be done quick-and-dirty in a Hotfix as well as some others that would need a bit more time and effort but could fit into a DF minor patch. The juicy stuff always happens at the beginning of an expension so I separated them.

Area of Effect

As a Hotfix

  • Screams of the Void also increases VT and SW:P crit chance by 40% --> this could make a potential ghosts-build viable via Tormented Spirits.
  • Reduce Ghost travel time by 33%.
  • Increase Ghost damage by at least 25%.
  • Shadow Word: Death detonates all stacks of N'zoth on the current target. N'zoth is the capstone of the SW:Death block so why not make it interact with each other?
  • N'zoth stacks auto-collapse at max. stacks.

In a (near) future Patch

  • Surge of Insanity is simply mandatory so its effect could be baseline. New effect: Mind Flay / Mind Spike are also casted on enemies affected by VT ( and / or SW:P? ) within 8 yards around the initial target. No additional insanity generation is necessary to not make it OP. Affliction Warlock Drain Life on all Soul Rot targets also looks amazing :)

Single Target

As a Hotfix

  • Increase Mind Blast (currently known as Wet Noodle Blast) damage by at least 40% baseline. Okay okay, this might be problematic in AoE because of Psychic Link.
  • Increase Void Torrent damage by 20% as its CD is longer and it should be rewarding to be able to stand still and channel for its whole duration.

Single Target vs. AoE Choices

In a (near) future Patch

  • Make Insideous Ire is a 1-point talent for the 40% dmg increase and make it a choice node with a new talent "Improved Psychic Link" that increases Psychic Link damage distribution by another 10%. This would free up an extra talent point that we can use wherever. For utility or defense for example.

Quality Of Life

As a Hotfix

  • Reduce the channeling duration of Idol of C'thun by 50% while keeping its damage and insanity generation. It would reduce the likelihood of a tentacle friend just hanging around for half its duration once a trash pack just died after it spawned too late. It would also make the gameplay snappier and quicker via faster insanity generation.
  • Make Shadow Crash reset its CD if 3 or less targets are affected. There would be no benefits of spamming Shadow Crash on 2-3 targets because its base damage is barely anything and its insanity generation is also not that amazing.
  • Increase Angelic Bulwark absorption to at least 30% of max HP to actually be useful.
  • Dark Ascension must be instant cast. It feels extremely bad to have cast time on a burst CD that has no immediate effect anyway (unlike the AoE effect of Void Eruption).

In a (near) future Patch

  • Make Void Torrent refresh all dots via Psychic Link.

Yogg-Saron Rework

Expension Level Update

  • It has a lot of timing problems and inconsistencies. On the high end of M+ you generate a lot of Yoggs by chain-pulling but on the more casual side it is just a wasted random dude that gets summoned right at the end of a pull and is hanging around most of the time while the group is running towards the next trash pack. It happens way too many times. Not to mention how it was nerfed to the ground.
  • Its new effect could revolve around Banshees and even more ghosts! It could be a CD that you actively press.
  • Idea #1 Shuriken Tornado Style: You release empowered ghosts every second for 8 seconds. These ghosts deal 100% increased damage and generate X insanity and / or extend VT and SW:P duration by 2 seconds. 1 min CD.
  • Idea #2 Banshee: You get the current Yogg stacks from Ghosts. You can summon a Banshee (or anything that fits thematically better) anytime you want once you reach X stacks with a base duration of 5 seconds. You could reach X*3 stacks and the Banshee's duration would increase to a max. of 15 seconds. Unsure if its damage should be affected by the stacks though. It would force us to hold on to the stacks even if the current situation would be good to summon the Banshee from a gameplay perspective. It's like combo points for Spriests. It would give us a decent button to press while moving.

Mindbender Rework

Expension Level Update

  • That entire thing could be completely reworked. Mindbender is not a very interesting thing to press. It is just a funny-looking Shadowfiend after all.
  • Inescepable Torment is also quite underwhelming (especially after all the nerfs), not to mention Y'Shaarj.
  • Instead of a Mindbender, summon something like void-style Stinging Swarms from BRH (Lord Kur'Talos Ravencrest). Or like the Chestburster :). It would blast the target with void / shadow energy and generate 2 insanity just like current Mindbender does.
  • It could work the same as Stinging Swarms really. Just make sure its stun effects are not destroying stun DRs in PVP.
  • Inescepable Torment would make it explode with void / shadow energy for every 6 insanity it generates, dealing X damage to nearby enemies.
  • Y'Shaarj could work very well with it. Increase Stinging Swarms (new Mindbender) insanity generation by 1. This would make the AoE blast happen every 2nd hit instead of every 3rd.
  • MAYBE also reduce the CD of Mindbender by 2 seconds for every 50 insanity / every Devouring Plague spent. However, this would de-sync Mindbender from Dark Ascension and DA would be an even more boring CD to press.

What do you guys think?

Thank you for reading until the end!

Sinsofmany - Ragnaros EU

2 Likes
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This is incredibly well thought out. You have some great ideas. Here’s hoping someone with some sort of say reads this and will at least consider implementing some of these changes.

2 Likes
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I can agree that most of the things you mentioned need to be looked at and addressed for the various issues that they have.

However my ideas in addressing them are both similar to yours but also very different direction taken.

I don’t know if you’ve seen my various feedback posts but regardless, I would say that some critical elements need to be taken seriously when coming up with ideas.

Elements such as…

  • Button Bloat
    No one wants any additional unnecessary button to press. So ideas like making Idol of Yogg-Saron an additional button is already leaving a bad taste in my mouth and I’m sure others would echo the sentiment.
  • Pet management = lesser is better
    Most Priest players and especially Shadow Priests are very against pet management.
    It’s commonly accepted that if you want to manage a pet then go warlock or hunter or Unholy DK.
    I think it’s fine as a set it and forget it button as it has been and at most syncing up your attacks to line up with its attacks/procs that make your own spells hit harder or grant an additional interaction. But that should be the end of it.

So I won’t post my entire feedback post here again, but I will pull out some comparisons to your ideas.
Granted, some my be more reliant on other talents being tweaked slightly to add synergy in order to make sense and should not be taken as a stand alone solution.

Personally, I think the direction taken to make Surge of Insanity work for both Mind Flay and Mind Spike and it just enhances damage is very dull and just detracts from more interesting talent options.

Instead, this would be my replacement.
Still triggers after Devouring Plague and is useful in any situation.

  • Echoing Shadows (New 2 point talent)
    40/80% of all your periodic damage dealt in the last 3 sec is dealt again, occurring after casting Devouring Plague.

Mind Blast hitting hard is tricky as we have dots dealing damage at the same time. So in order to make Mind Blast hit hard again, you need to negatively impact your dot damage capability in some shape or form.
This is the direction I took.

  • Shadow Asgard (Choice with Thought Harvester)
    Mind Blast consumes up to 12 seconds of your damage over time spells, dealing 100% of the damaged consumed.
    Damage consumed grants Shadow Asgard [buff] for 12 sec causing Mind Blast to deal 200% additional damage.

I too think we should be able to “improve” Psychic Link.
But my method would be to do it via combat and not a direct talent.
I went with a dynamic method to enhance Psychic Link but not opposed to doing on a static level.
I choose to put this improved Psychic Link within the Hero Path section.

  • Psionic Energy
    • Holy: Healing done from your Holy Word spells generate a stack of Psionic Energy. Reaching 20 stacks fill you with power and causing you to erupt, dealing pulse healing to your allies within 20 yards every second for 3 seconds.
    • Shadow: Damage dealt by your Shadow Word spells generate a stack of Psionic Energy. Reaching 20 stacks causes the next target to receive damage from your Mind Spells to erupt, dealing pulsing damage to every enemy within 20 yards every second for 3 seconds.
  • Psionic Power
    When Psionic Energy erupts, your Psychic Link damage and healing increases by 5% for 30 seconds. Stacking up to 3.
  • Psionic Force
    Psionic Energy pulse deals 100% more damage and healing with each consecutive pulse.

So back in WoD, you gained a leveling up perk to make Mind Flay deal damage faster which in result made its channel duration shorter.
So going in that direction, I purpose this.

  • Malediction (Redesign)
    Your channeled spells deal damage 33% faster.
    • This would affect all channeled spells, including the Void Tendrils spawned by Idol of C’Thun.
  • Void Torrent (Updated)
    Channel a torrent of void energy into the target, dealing Shadow damage over 3 sec and causing your periodic damage effects on the target to deal damage 100% faster.

I agree that since the talents leading up to Idol of Yogg-Saron have Shadowy Apparition synergy talents, that Yogg-Saron should also play into that and the idea that you have to be in a long and arguably stationary location for the big dude to come out and be useful is just pathetic to be honest.
Instead, I went the direction of more ghosts and they now have an extra interaction.

  • Idol of Yogg-Saron (Update)
    Your Shadow Word: Death spawns a Shadowy Apparition for each target afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain. Shadowy Apparitions deal 20% of its damage to nearby targets. Max (5).

So I think having Mindbender replacing Shadowfiend should feel game changing. The biggest change itself is the more usage Mindbender allows.
Because of the higher uptime Mindbender has, I think it would be cool to really make that higher uptime meaningful in a game changing type of way. But at the same time keep it a set it and forget it (no pet management).

This is the direction I would like to see.

  • Idol of Y’Shaarj (Redesign to be more interactive and game changing)
    The fractured Mind of Y’Shaarj coalesces into the essences of 7 Prime Sha forms, empowering your powers of the Mind.
    Summoning Mindbender unlocks the powers of all the prime Sha and empowering your Mind Spells, granting each an additional effect while Mindbender is active.
    • Echo of Anger: Mind Flay is castable while moving.
    • Echo of Hatred: Mind Blast gains an additional charge.
    • Echo of Violence: Mind Spike cast time is reduced by 50%.
    • Echo of Despair: Mind Sear spawns a Shadowy Apparition each time a target is damaged from Mind Sear, Max targets (5).
    • Echo of Fear: Mindbender attacks 20% faster and applies a stack of Shadow Vulnerability stacking up to 10 times, lasts 15 seconds.
      • Shadow Vulnerability causes the target to take an additional 1% damage from your shadow spells. Upon reaching 10 stacks, your [non-boss] target becomes Horrified for 3 sec.
    • Echo of Doubt: Mindgames duration is refreshed each time the target takes damage from your Mind spells.
    • Echo of Pride: Mind Shift cools down 100% faster.

For a more in depth dive into my ideas, see link below…

1 Like
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  • Button Bloat
    No one wants any additional unnecessary button to press. So ideas like making Idol of Yogg-Saron an additional button is already leaving a bad taste in my mouth and I’m sure others would echo the sentiment.

Understandable!

I was also thinking about button bloat but I would personally prefer an extra button for Yogg-Saron than having it as a semi-random thing to proc even if it makes the gameplay a bit more bloated.

On the other hand, if there were ways to extend our dots, we wouldn’t be forced to cast Shadow Crash on CD and that would ease our rotation a bit.

  • Pet management = lesser is better
    Most Priest players and especially Shadow Priests are very against pet management.
    It’s commonly accepted that if you want to manage a pet then go warlock or hunter or Unholy DK.
    I think it’s fine as a set it and forget it button as it has been and at most syncing up your attacks to line up with its attacks/procs that make your own spells hit harder or grant an additional interaction. But that should be the end of it.

Completely agreed!

  • Malediction (Redesign)
    Your channeled spells deal damage 33% faster.
    • This would affect all channeled spells, including the Void Tendrils spawned by Idol of C’Thun.

Yes please!

You also mentioned Shadow Word: Death summoning Spirits. Yes, please!

I like your ideas too, I have read them before.

The purpose of my post is mainly the Hotfixes and the Near-Future Updates because we need immediate help, not only from a damage perspective but our build diversity and talent interactions are also troublesome.

Since great ideas that need more commitment on the development side were completely ignored, I hoped to come up with some considerably easy-to-implement solutions that would make our gameplay more interesting, engaging and less punishing (*cough* Shadow Crash) ASAP.

I cannot fathom how the priest community has been being ignored for so long. There were SO MANY well-written, well-structured posts and quality discussions about our problems that I have to say I am really proud to be a part of this community.

2 Likes
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just reading through this now but… hohoh… i love this idea honestly. especially if it triggered the chain reaction to the other stacks around it to start ticking down 1 by 1.

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I lost intreset in shadow priest when they removed the inst pros of having mindblast/and mind spike at the same time. Then got back into it. Then they changed the proc to every 2nd dev plague. Ive always loved s/priest.

Love all these ideas you 2 are throwing back and forward with each other.

Only 1 problem with it all and its really ashame. Blizz probably wouldnt read this or just brush it all off. Ive read alot of ideas over the months with different class what people have said. Not one chnage.
Ive even posted to them direct about assassination rog slice and dice not healing on a new combo point refresh still hasnt been fixed.

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I like the ideas.
Inalways thought mind bender would be a fun flavo e to add to ghosts. After so many ghosts spawn it attracts a mindbender, every so often, or after another cooldown like once u void torrent your ghosts turn into mind benders.

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Shadow Priest gets reworked more than any other spec in the game. I swear its at least once an expac. They need to take it back to the drawing board and start from scratch.

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How would you define or approach this action/goal?

I only ask because I can argue that they have done both starting from scratch and revisiting the core aspects of shadow.

Going into Legion = Starting from scratch as that was a completely new vision of how Shadow plays that was a very foreign playstyle compared to what was built over the course of over a decade of improvements to the playstyle shadow was and continued to be up until the Legion revamp.

Then going into Dragonflight, we see a more of a return to prior Legion Shadow with mixed results of some new and some old concepts that struggle to find a good footing in the modern version of wow that back prior to M+ content was never an issue.

So if we say they need to start from scratch again, what would that look like? Is that something completely different like what Legion did? Or something more akin to the core playstyle shadow started out as back in Vanilla?

I pose this question because I would argue that it was the introduction of the Legion changes that made shadow loose its identity in gameplay and now its a confusing mess because its close to a 50/50 split of time between old shadow and new shadow and its torn between worlds within the playerbase as to what shadow needs to actually be or become.

Personally, I don’t trust the ability to create something wholly new given the consistent mess the Voidform era has been wrought with and I fear that another go at something completely new will just introduce another case of shadows identity crisis and we may have 3 competing visions of what shadow should be resulting in an ever more fractured playerbase with even less clarity of what to do with shadow and how to proceed in future developments.