Shadow PVP

Classes Priest
1

Shadow is generally regarded as sub-optimal in PVP. Not dumpster tier, not “unplayable,” but probably a high B, meaning it is outclassed by many specs. It tends to do better vs caster comps and worse against melee comps. It is absolutely shut down against a full melee team because it has no mobility.

Imagine how much this would improve Shadow’s quality of life in PVP:

  1. Cooldowns (Void Eruption / Dark Ascension) are instant
  2. Revert the self-healing nerf on Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague made in early Dragonflight from 30% back up to 50%
  3. New passive (really a returning PVP talent): being physically attacked grants X insanity, not to occur more than once every x seconds.
  4. Door of Shadows on the main tree as a choice node with Angelic Feather.

This would probably solve 90% of Shadow’s problems in PVP and wouldn’t harm PVE (it would make Shadow PVE better, actually). And it wouldn’t be OP.

Thoughts?

10 Likes
2

I really like this idea. I’ve been solo shuffling all season and I haven’t seen a single other shadow priest in my matches. We’re pretty much just sitting ducks. Door of Shadows is one of the few things that made Shadowlands bearable.

I don’t think we need our life steal buffed. We just need the ability to get casts off. I always thought that Misery should just merge the properties of Vampiric Touch into Shadow Word Pain that way it would be instant cast. They can remove the VT dispell fear effect, healers get immune to it fast anyway. It’s a pain just trying to cast our dots on enemies and literally all of our procs and mastery depends on it.

Insta cast Void Eruption/Dark Ascension should be baseline in my opinion. It’s hard enough to get a single cast off and when we are locked out of our shadow spells which is pretty much all we have to deal damage.

2 Likes
3

I’d like to see door of shadows make a come back as well. Especially with the upcoming change of covenant abilities getting reschooled. Mind games and door were already in the SP shadow school. I often find fade, feather, and void tendrils are simply not enough. Fade would need a short freedom after use - I would rather that than the 10% damage reduction.

2 Likes
4

Agreed VT dispel punishment is beyond out dated. Dots are perma dispelled unless playing with a UA lock. This on top of how difficult it is to get damage rolling against melee teams (every solo shuffle lobby) truly makes this an unforgiving spec to play

5 Likes
5

Against a melee…door of shadows wouldnt change anything for us. Casted shadow school 1 min cd portal against, well nowadays any melee, is just useless.

Just imaginentrying to cast that of with just a war on you…now add a second melee and a healer with kick…not to mention that even if you get to cast it …they would be instantly back on your ars without any slow or reliable root…

What shadow needs, which was proven to work in previous seasons, is tankiness…so your other sugestions would help.

8 Likes
6

I agree it wouldn’t help much to get away from a warrior, but it would help when chasing down enemies hiding behind pillars which is what I mostly used it for past expansion.

1 Like
7

Void volley was also over nerfed

4 Likes
8

Burst should not have to be casted. At least not DA

Our spell protection is the worst and needs beefed up

Dots are hard to stay applied, so they should tick harder. If we got a better spell protection, they should tick for less

I never cared for door of shadow. Bringing spectral guise back would be a start. What shadow really needed for movement is what void elves got. Sp needs some kind of teleport and I don’t think door is it

1 Like
9

I like Door of Shadows, but I also like Spectral Guise more as that when combined with Feather can allow some unreal movement for it a short duration… at least that was the case in MoP/WoD.

But seemingly as blizzard is either acutely aware of but not convinced either should be included in the Priest toolkit, I have another suggestion/direction.

Since we use Leap of Faith to provide movement to others, it requires a target. So I propose what I’ve both seen and said before, we require another person to have our “displacement” ability and unlike Leap of Faith where we pull them to us, instead we switch locations with the target.

  • Mind Shift
    You Shift Minds with a party member, causing you to swap locations. 3 min cooldown.
    PvP modifier
    You can now Mind Shift with an enemy, causing you to swap locations.

This keeps it in line to be similar to Leap of Faith, Mind Control, Mind Vision and Void Shift where you need another target to make use of its utility.

At least with this type of restriction, it does not grant full freedom of movement/displacement that we priests seemed to be subject to but also opens up interesting opportunities in both PvE and PvP.

The idea that you can swap locations with a target to put you both exactly where you need to be or to teleport an enemy player into your melee meat grinder while you show up beside the enemy team to fear bomb them at same time is intriguing.

3 Likes
10

Cool ideas

11

Having access to Door of Shadows would be nice sure, but it being on the same node as Angelic Feather is very questionable.

Having a movement ability being a choice with a displacement ability while also having access to another movement ability with Body and Soul just makes the choice a non choice between Angelic Feather and Door of Shadows.

If anything, they need to fix the mess of having Body and Soul and Angelic Feather being separate nodes while offering essentially the same exact thing.

It is Angelic Feather and Body and Soul that needs to occupy the same talent choice node.

Then elsewhere the talent tree can make room for our displacement spell.

Honestly, thinking about it a bit, having Door of Shadows being a Choice node with Spectral Guise would be interesting.

You get the choice of displacement or short duration stealth. Choice to escape via distance or combat.

Then for my Mind Shift idea, put that as a choice node with Apathy but change Apathy to rooting targets instead of slowing them (as it did in Cataclysm when it was called Paralysis).

  • Paralysis
    When you critically hit with your Mind Blast, you cause the target to be unable to move for 4 sec.

That way you can get the choice of playing keep away through an active or passive choice. Active having a cooldown but adding another dimension in gameplay or passive if you want more uptime at the random chance of critical striking.

Edit:

Just wanted to also add that it is of my opinion that the reasoning Blizzard/wow devs decided not to allow Priest access to either Spectral Guise or Door of Shadows is because of the healer side of our class.

Having a healer access to a stealth on demand in the form of Spectral Guise is pretty overpowered imo (maybe I’m wrong?)
This is made even more evident by the fact that Spectral Guise was only a 30 second cooldown during its run. So if added back, it’s cooldown needs to be addressed.

But priest healer having access to a displacement ability in the form of Door of Shadows was only allowed because everyone regardless of class/spec had access to it in SL thus negating the advantage it brought to the table.

So if solely Priests were able to obtain access to either spell now would tip the scales way to in the favor of the priest and since we are known for our immobility as a major weakness, we would be unleashed and set loose which would upset the current perception and thus cause all the other classes to actually work to get a kill instead of Face rolling with slows and interrupts.

It is of this opinion that I think Priests are not given such a mobility game changing spell.

I honestly do not think it’s because of Shadow that causes this level of egregious oversight.

So in saying that, as much as it may upset the healing side of Priests, I think the only way to obtain a Displacement ability like Door of Shadows or Spectral Guise would be for those to be shadow specific only.

But how would this be done?

Take the power Infusion debacle and make that node and twins change based on specialization.

This would solve the issue Shadow has with being balanced around Power Infusion with the other DPS while also giving back PI to Discipline as it originally was when it first made its appearance in the old talent trees prior to MoP talent revamp and then give Holy a more equivalent themed spell.

These are from my other suggestions here detailing out how I would approach this…

Replacement for Power Infusion

  • Holy specialization

    • Ascension
      You ascend into the air out of harms way, granting 100% increased movement speed for 15 seconds. 3 minute cooldown.
    • PvP modifier
      You become immune to movement effects and duration is increased by 5 seconds.

  • Discipline specialization

    • Power Infusion
      Infuses the target with power for 20 sec, increasing haste by 25% and all absorption effects by 100%. 3 minute cooldown.
    • PvP modifier
      Atonement healing is increased by 100% to targets infused with Power Infusion.

  • Shadow specialization

    • Spectral Guise
      Your shadow blurs into the darkness, leaving your true form behind. As a shadow you are stealthed, but remain in combat. Lasts 6 sec or until your true form is hit by 3 direct attacks. 3 minute cooldown.
    • PvP modifier
      Using fade reduces the cooldown by 10 seconds and 1 second for each Shadowy Apparition spawned.

Replacement for Twins of the Sun Priestess

  • Holy specialization

    • Angelic Embrace
      Ascension is extended to your group (5) and the cooldown is reduced by 60 seconds.
      • Useful to bypass areas by flying over obstacles or traversing vertically to deal with something or using a short cut. Also useful during a fight with ground mechanics as it can be used to avoid completely.

  • Discipline specialization

    • Twins of the Sun Priestess
      Power Infusion also grants you 100% of its effects when used on an ally and the cooldown is reduced by 60 seconds.

  • Shadow specialization

    • Enveloping Shadows
      While remained stealthed, you become immune to damage and Spectral Guise cooldown is reduced by 60 seconds.
      • Useful to soak / avoid damage similar to Demon Hunters Netherwalk ability.

Note:
Each talent reduces the cooldown of its respective ability to justify picking up the enhancement talent even if you don’t take advantage of the enhanced version of the spell and/or you are doing solo content where it does not benefit anyone else. This allows the point investment to not feel like its wasted at times.

2 Likes
12

Our racial active ability was so poorly designed it’s actually completely useless in any scenario.

13

I’d be up for increasing the speed of Body and Soul when casted on yourself.

14

Whatever happens, they need to be a bit more unique imo.

Like for example…

  • Body and Soul
    Power Word: Shield and Leap of Faith increase your target’s movement speed by 30% and suppresses movement impairment effects for 3 sec.

  • Angelic Feather
    Places a feather at the target location, granting the first ally to walk through it 60% increased movement speed for 5 sec. Only 3 feathers can be placed at one time.

With this, you can get movement suppression similar to Death Knights Deaths Advance but at the cost of less bursty movement speed.

This puts a clear separation in the two similar spells which would be more helpful in their own right pending situation.

  • Death’s Advance
    For 10 sec, your movement speed is increased by 35%, you cannot be slowed below 100% of normal speed, and you are immune to forced movement effects and knockbacks.
    Passive: You cannot be slowed below 70% of normal speed.

So just looked this up to include as a reference, I forgot about its passive.

Wild that they get this passive bonus lol.
I can’t recall if I’ve ever seen a passive bonus on a spell before.

But speaking of passives, I think Vampiric Embrace should have a passive leech effect.
Instead they just make it a choice node to force you to pick a passive leech or VE instead.

Really goes to show the double standard when it comes to class design lol.

So something like this…

  • Vampiric Embrace
    Fills you with the embrace of Shadow energy for 12 sec, causing you to heal a nearby ally for 40% of any single-target Shadow spell damage you deal.
    Passive: Your spells and abilities leech 3% of all damage dealt back to you and your group.

Then instead of Sanguine Teachings being the Choice Node, it could be Mind Games.

This version of Mind Games would be more utility oriented and less damage focused.

  • Mindgames
    Assault an enemy’s mind, briefly reversing their perception of reality causing all healing and damage effects to be reversed for 10 seconds.
    Passive: You heal and reflect 3% of the damage you take back.

This can remain a single target spell or change to be an area of effect spell like Mass Dispel and affecting multiple enemy targets.

This is a great alternative to use when you are unable to pump out spells with Vampiric Embrace due to being silenced / spell locked or out of combat being Polymorphed, Sapped, Stunned, LOS etc.

So…

Vampiric Embrace would be more Offensive cooldown.
Mindgames would be more defensive cooldown.

15

What does is do now? Don’t you throw it in a general aoe direction and then you have the port there?

16

Just bring back damnation and insta void eruption and they’ll already be in a better spot. The removal of having the option to insta void erupt ruined sp, losing damnation just destroyed it. Dropped torrent and give me back damnation.

3 Likes
17

No way. I watched a priest spatial tear with a seed over a line in fyraak p3. It’s giga.

18

Nah it disappears in a second or two whether you port or not, it isn’t persistent like a lock portal. They’re right, it’s a pretty bad racial.

19

I wish. Make a void elf just to try it out, you’ll wonder why it’s even a thing.

20

Wasn’t it originally like a lock or monk port? Or was it always a, use it now ability?