Hi all, this is my shadow priest and it was my main in WoD. I came back after 8 years to level it again, now having leveled an 80 Warlock, Evoker, and Mage before it.
I read many comments on this forum that shadow priests lack mobility, melee peels, and must hard cast everything. I kind of disagree with this, and think that shadow priests are actually quite fun and decent after playing BGs in PvP for a while.
I may be wrong about this, and it’s true that shadow priests are still relatively squishy, but I’m mainly comparing it to my warlock and my shadow priest main in WoD:
1) Lack of Melee Peels
To be honest, the closest comparison to a shadow priest is an affliction warlock, which only has 1 melee peel: either howl of terror or mortal coil (you can only take one). For shadow priests, you have both void tendril and psychic scream both at once, and the latter is on a shorter cooldown.
For smaller engagements, shadow priests also have psychic horror to stun a target and briefly get away (fade + angelic feathers). Silence also helps a bit against hybrid classes like shamans that can frost shock you pre-emptively.
I know warlocks are far bulkier with many more defensive abilities, but we have at least 3 solid abilities to get melee off us.
This is far better than WoD, where we had to choose between psychic scream or void tendrils. We couldn’t have both.
2) Lack of Escape Spells
I also don’t fully understand the complaints on the forum. As an affliction warlock, their escape spells are a little clunky to use. They can soul burn and instant cast a gateway, click on an area to run away, then click on the gateway, which can be a little tedious. They also have soul burn: demonic circle to free themselves from all snares, but needs the circle to be put on pre-emptively.
Shadow priests, with enough talents, can get fade to just 20 seconds cooldown, remove all snares, and with the right PvP talent, make you invulnerable for 1 second. You can then combine it with body and soul (PW:S) or angelic feathers to briefly run away.
We also have dispersion, which frees us from all snares, and with the right talents, is on a 90 sec cooldown, and it heals us, increasing our speed further to run away.
3) Having to Hard Cast Everything
In WoD, we had instant mind blasts and lots of mind spike procs, which made me felt like a gatling gun.
I thought in this expansion, Voidform would make our non-void form very weak, but it isn’t true at all!
With the right talents, you can get instant cast Psyfiend and Voidwraith. You also get proc-based instant casts like instant Vampiric Touch burst after the first Vampiric Touch is cast, instant mind blasts, and instant shadow word: death procs.
This is quite similar to a warlock’s nightfall and malefic rupture procs.
Shadow priests also get Shadow Crash, that applies Dots to everyone, much like an affliction warlock’s Jinx, phantom singularity, Soul Rot, and soul swap.
Altogether, shadow priests and affliction warlocks have lots of instant procs that let them do damage while moving.
To make matters even better, void form’s void blast no longer replaces mind blast, so you get an instant cast every 6 seconds. You can also take divine star (though the damage is very low), instant cast and no CD holy nova (but I rarely use, but it helps a bit sometimes), and with voidweaver, your void torrents can be cast while moving.
Conclusion
Note that this is just from my perspective and opinion. I’m not here to troll or say that there’s nothing wrong with shadow PvP. I don’t do arenas, and focus entirely on PvP BGs.
Understandably, a shadow priest’s survivability is by no means as good as a warlock, who has soul leech, both Fel and Demon armor, Fel synergy, soulburned demonic healthstones, soulstone, dark pact, demonic resolve, soulburn AoE drain life with soul rot, +15% health from talents, shadowy bulwark, phantom singularity AoE heal, etc.
However, shadow priests do have better escapes and sizable instant cast procs and mobility and melee peels, which are mostly better than a warlock’s.
I don’t think shadow priests are meant to engage many classes 1 vs 1, unlike affliction warlocks, but we just need a bit of wits and love to play well in BG PvP:
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When you are focused on, use fade and run away with body and soul + feathers then blend with your allies.
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When you are focused on, use dispersion to run away to your allies, and keep a low profile for a while.
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When you have many melee on you, psychic scream or void tendrils and get away.
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Blend into the background, and like WoD, your role is mainly as a support DPS, not a direct engagement fighter like a warrior or warlock who can tank a lot of damage.
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Use your multiple interrupts - silence, psychic horror, etc. - to shut down some classes and cut them down.
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Dot up everyone with shadow crash → VT + SW:P and hide in the background, and find someone to burst down and give psychic link damage.
Overall, compared to WoD, I think shadow priest PvP is far better, with melee interrupts being cut down (which was terrible back then), with comparable instant casts, escapes, and better melee peels.
As said, I don’t know anything about arenas for this expansion, as I stopped doing them. However, from a strictly PvP BG standpoint, I found shadow priests very fun, fluid, and flexible to play. Because of their hit-and-run tactics, I found them more fun than my affliction warlock, whose role is mainly to multi-dot. Shadow priests have a few versatile tools like mass dispel and many ways to shut down a target more than warlocks that make them really fulfilling to play.
What do you all think?
Am I missing out something so far?
Edit:
Oh yea, and devouring plague spams as more instant casts and self-healing.