TLDR AT THE BOTTOM
Just the other day I decided to start leveling a shadow priest to try it out and see if I like the spec or not.
I’m a little confused as to the thematic of the spec. Why does a spriest have so much overlap with a warlock (more specifically, an Affliction Lock). I always thought of Shadow Priests to be all about psychic manipulation with fears, void magic and shadows.
Instead you have things like Devouring Plague (which I understand a good portion of players wanted that back to replace voidform), but that never seemed to fit the theme of void energy and magic. Inflicting DISEASES and AFFLICTIONS is a specialty of Affliction Warlock and Unholy DK, not of a void entity or even someone channeling void magic.
As for the gameplay of the spec, spriest feels awful so far. You end up stopping the channel of your mind flay multiple times to refresh dots, cast mind blasts, or cast DP and it just feels terrible.
TLDR; Shadow Priest should be more themed after actual horrific void entity’s (a perfect example of this funnily enough would be Shadowreaper Anduin from Hearthstone) rather than this weird tentacle based old god situation we have going now.
THIS IS ALL JUST MY OPINION WITH MY LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF SPRIEST, AND MY OPINION COULD BE COMPLETELY WRONG.
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Your opinion isn’t completely without merit. Shadow has a long-standing reputation of being a “poor man’s” Warlock. Even Blizzard has joked about it in their annual April Fools post. And over the numerous expansions over the years, many have raised concerns about the direction(s) in which Shadow has morphed.
Since you’re new to the spec, I suspect you aren’t familiar with the history of it. Going back to Vanilla (or today’s Classic), Devouring Plague was an “Undead-only” spell. It worked quite differently then, though. The disease/plague aspect of it makes some sense, thematically, for an Undead… if you consider the Deathknell/Tirisfal Glades area where they come from… as well as the nearby Western and Eastern Plaguelands. Later on, the spell was made available to all races. In Vanilla, Shadow shined in PvP… with Psychic Screams that held while doing damage… with the “psychic manipulation” of Mind Controlling opponents off a cliff.
In Vanilla raids, Shadow was more of a support spec… buffing Warlocks and providing a little “off healing.” In Burning Crusade, Shadow could do a bit more damage… but was still more of a support spec, being a “mana battery.” The whole void thing/tentacles is a recent (relatively speaking) Legion development.
Lastly, Mind Flay has been a “filler” spell for a long time… i.e., something to cast, while waiting for something better to come off cooldown. Interrupting its channel is proper play.
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Yeah I wish they’d shy away from that instead of embracing the joke. After seeing Mindgames added at the beginning of Shadowlands and the whole of Revendreth (the type of spells the mobs cast like Soulflay) I kind of wish they went with more Vampiric Themes for Shadow Priest instead of the Tentacle/Void stuff they got going right now.
Would’ve been the perfect time to introduce a quest that would make their spells red similar to Warlock’s Green Fire. (Mindflay into Soulflay, etc.)
[EDIT]: When I think of Shadow Priest I think of more the Gothic/Vampiric Dark Magic side of things, so creatively speaking it is weird to see them struggle to come up with a gameplay style that doesn’t conflict with Affliction because when I think of Affliction Warlock I think of more the Witch Doctor-esque fantasy - Diseases and whatnot.
They could easily pull more inspiration from San’layn in the Warcraft universe for abilities to separate the spec completely from the Affliction dilemma. I mean they’ve already got Mind Blast, they used to have Mind Spike and Shadow Orbs. They also already have the Spirits that float at people to do dmg. If they delved into making the ability themes more about doing psychological damage and sprinkled in some Soul/Interrogator/Death themes they could give the spec a solid identity other than “The Poor Man’s Affliction Lock”.
But that would require the class designers to separate them from the whole Void Cultist thing (or just simply offer both options for class fantasy), and they’d have to get a bit creative with it… if they cared enough to do so.
If anything it’s obvious that the spec’s identity is a mess because it doesn’t seem like they know where to go with it.
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Shadow Priest is just a garbage spec. Going into Shadowlands most of us begged them to remove void form, they did, and somehow they still managed to keep spriest hot trash. It’s sad because priests only have 1 DPS spec.
Look at the complaint threads about spriest today, and compare them with the complaint threads about spriest during BFA. Everyone still complaining about the same stuff, it’s crazy how the spec got completely reworked but still has the same fundamental problems.
I’m not a void priest. I’m a shadow priest. I don’t want more void theme to my shadow fantasy.
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It doesn’t have the same fundamental problems at all, and got nerfed to the state it’s in now. It’s not like it was like this all expansion. It just got tuned down too much in raid, and still isn’t very good in M+.
I was honestly shocked the spec didn’t get a major thematic rework in Legion because shadow has always been and felt like a discount Warlock.
I can live with the current way the spec is designed personally but it really feels like Blizzard wants this spec to fill a niche while also making sure they are mediocre at that niche.
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I feel that many casters are in a sort of identity crisis ever since Blizzard fleshed out the magic lore over the years. Fire and frost seem out of place for mages when shamans are masters of manipulating elemental forces. Druids manipulating cosmic forces seems out of place when mages are known for manipulating the magic of the titans. Warlocks summoning void walkers seems out of place when their focus is manipulating demons of the twisting nether and fel magic.
I definitely agree that shadow priests should be all about manipulating the psyche of targets with shadow magic from the void. A shadow priest should be putting targets in panic, doubt, and despair. Some abilities are on point with this theme, but others not so much. You are definitely right about Devouring Plague seeming out of place. We have a passive ability called Hallucinations that just rewards some insanity after using certain abilities. I feel Shadowy Apparitions should be renamed Hallucinations or better yet make it an ability like the mage Mirror Image spell (remember Prophet Skitra from Ny’alotha?).
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I want a mind trick ability that makes enemy targets friendly and allied targets hostile for a few seconds. I guess similar to mc, except the player has full control, and won’t become hostile to allies or friendly to enemies. It would only affect the player.
Plus 100 to this!
Devouring plague is definitely a hold over from vanilla UD’s racial ability. Having played UD priest since wrath (recently went maghar), it always made sense for me… but yeah, for other races now that you mention it, definitely out of place
I definitely agree that shadow priests should be all about manipulating the psyche of targets with shadow magic from the void.
Wouldn’t that be cool if Blizz went all-in on that? Like how about a Shadow pvp talent that causes your target to hallucinate, rearranging all their keybinds every 2 seconds for the next 10 seconds…returning them to their original position at the end of the spell.
Now that really would drive people to madness!
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That’s what I find annoying about the design of some of the classes / specs. they go halfway into the theme, but never embrace it and go all in.
Honestly, I hate the whole void form BS they added to shadow priest.
Shadowpriest should have been a class more focused on the Psyche. The human mind, soul, and human will with some vampiric elements overlapping them (Psychic Vampires). Entities that drain the soul, energy, and will of their enemy. I understand that the void world pretty much has some of these aspects which I am suggesting, but the whole VOIDFORM is kind of done poorly to the point that I wish it was just taken out of it. We already have ShadowForm, no need for another form.
Shadowpriest is pretty much the closest thing you’ll get to a Spiritual Medium or OCCULTIST. you can pretty much make this another spec if they felt like it.
If it were up to me, I would just make another spec for priests to separate this madness.
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