According to most players, shadow priest is one of the most fun specs since it was reworked in SL but to me it is the most boring and unperforming dps spec. Why?
Performance
It has one of the most complex and inflexible rotation. Sometimes you do not even know what to press. Too GCD intense for little to no reward
Mind flay and mind flay feel awful to cast. Mind Flay is laughable and obsolete in a game that requires you to move every 0.2 seconds And even if you do, you KNOW you’re losing DPS by casting it so it just feels horrible.
So many buttons to press but none of them feels impactul. Devouring plague is a joke and it is probably the most boring and undertuned spender of the entire game.
No burst. Mind Blast should hurt but it doesn’t. Devo plague overwrites itself so even if we manage to have a ton of resource to spend,
No mobility
Worst AOE of the entire game. I mean who has worse AOE than shadow priest? I dare you to tell me another class.
No utility. Priest does not have lust, does not have health stones, does not have summons. Lol… pathetic, you cannot even compete against boomkins, mages and warlocks they have overall a better kit and utility.
Aesthetics
Shadow form looks like a purple fart and it is disgusting to see it.
After a while It get tired to listen the spell voices animations: “uahhhohhh uahooo ahhhhh” OMG… sometimes I mute my laptop when I play shadow
t’s just horrible. A horrible mess of a spec that butchered what was once awesome. To be honest I prefer the old shadow priest from Legion. At least voidform felt unique and badass and we had decent AOE via void eruption. Now we are just a cheap affliction warlock who is a “builder and spender” dps spec with boring spells.
I have decided to leave my priest behind and focus to other specs like balance druid, and warlock. It is a shame because I have had this toon since Cataclysm.
I would like to read your opinions. Is shadow priest fun? why is it fun?
Well as a person that enjoys classic, mind flay is kinda iconic for shadow tho i would rather it hit for more since you have to sit and channel it
Was asked by almost everyone to be brought back into the game when blizz decided to revamp shadow again
Happy to be corrected here but i thought it was addative, not overwrting
Here your arguement is stronger. The current aoe set up is clunky i agree and should come with mind sear auitomatically when you take that talent without the need to hit another button twice mid channel
Love shadowform, always have
confused… cause DP was around then too so i would think you are used to it
Legion spriest was great in very narrow applications.
Every spec has tradeoffs, pros and cons, etc.
It sounds like Destro lock would really be your jam, tbh. The big hits from Chaos Bolt will feel exhilarating compared to Shadow, and Destro has good aoe as well. Shadow is death by a thousand cuts, which is great if you like the dot/rot playstyle but not great if you like those big numbers and those 1-2 abilities that really feel impactful to press. The tradeoff is that those chaos bolts are “high stakes” hits, so one not landing for any reason is a huge dps loss.
Shadow priest was fine through all SL, the recent nerf in 9.2 just hit too hard in my opinion.
The spec is ok and I mean it is not the most fun I’ve ever had with a spec (Legion was fun because it was new and Artifact weapons just worked too good for mostly all specs in the game) but it’s ok, tbh I’m burned out of Legion-BFA-SL class design and would like to have reworks (Legion/MoP level reworks) for all classes next expansion.
BFA sp was just horrible outside of raids. M+ as sp in BFA felt very bad.
Also in PvP Shadowlands sp is one of the best specs in the game for all pvp content. While in Legion/BFA sp was VERY conflicting, clunky and felt so bad to play.
Not really, it’s on par with Aff lock. Few DoT builders, and a main spender.
It’s a simply a filler spell. Better to cast something than to cast nothing at all.
About as many as any other DPS really.
That’s not how DP works lol. You may want to go and read the tooltip on it.
Aye, right up there Warlocks and DKs
Aff locks and Feral Druids lol
AoE stun, off heals, PI, mass dispel, good defensives
Still there and doesnt a pretty pennies worths of a chunk of damage when used in a solid AoE setting.
They’ve got ramp up time. They’re not good in lower keys where burst is king. But once you start getting towards the 15s and higher range where things live longer and you can go through a full rotation and AoE together, they really start to shine.
This is true but the majority of players didn’t want the spell back for the sake of having the spell back. What players wanted was a big bursty dot that did a ton of damage and self healing that felt good to press.
Unfortunately, because of the way shadow is designed with insanity, that version of devouring plague can’t exist. So we get the boring, muddied down version that we currently have.
In terms of general design and gameplay I am content enough with new(old) shadow. I still stand by the fact that they should’ve just made void priest a new spec or class (with a different name an aesthetic of course) that kept the legion + bfa design. In raid, that design was enjoyable. It just sucked to play literally everywhere else.
It’s the worst feeling DPS spec I’ve played. The rotation is so clunky it gives me PTSD. You are cancelling channels left and right, your spenders feel like nothing. It has legit no stuns or slows or any kind of useful utility other than PI. It’s very slow compared to most other dps specs.
If they changed mind sear and mind flay into casts instead of channels, the spec would feel way better, you could just spend your insanity and DoT enemies in between casts instead of cancelling the channel. They also need more of an AoE rotation. Also right now having to spend Insanity on your ONLY AoE ability is ridiculous. The expect you to ramp up your insanity on single target and then dump it into your AoE channel. This is beyond stupid.