Again, let’s talk about what this is supposed to mean. Does it mean that shadow has received no changes, or does it mean shadow has received too few changes, or does it mean that the changes shadow has received are not solving the class’s problems?
If we want to talk about how significant shadow’s changes over the last three expansions have been, I’m fairly confident that just about every mage spec has received more changes every patch of TWW than shadow received over all of SL, DF, and TWW combined. Some of shadow’s pittance of changes are significant, but the updated Shadow Crash and Psychic Link are the only ones that really qualify from a gameplay perspective.
But even then, those changes are simply there to (very poorly) modernize how shadow spreads its dots, which every dot class has received, and splitting out the damage from Apparitions, which were extremely problematic in BFA, so that Blizzard can more easily nerf shadow when it gets too strong.
It’s a lie to say shadow has received no changes at all, but it’s absolutely true that shadow has received extremely few changes, almost none of which are meaningful, outside of the changes that are common to all dot classes.
But, then again, maybe you think that archon caring more about filler spells is a meaningful change, but that’s not a gameplay change or a change that addresses shadow’s problems. Arguably, it reinforces shadow’s problems.
I mean they took a serious look at Shadow and invested substantial amount of development resources into making changes. I don’t mean they solved the spec’s problems based on what people on the forum consider problems. But again, that’s not to automatically say your perspective is invalid.
I think I am seeing part of why we are talking past each other. Shadow has a lot of variety in its choices, and while I find that variety enjoyable, it’s clear that you don’t. Aneurysm feels similar. He wants to be able to spec into making Dots, apparitions, “targeted AOE,” or Mind Blast “hit like a truck.” To him, that is the variety that is lacking.
Well, you currently can spec into making all those stronger, but Mind Blast won’t be hitting nearly as hard as, say, a traditional Chaos Bolt, Shadow’s dots won’t be hitting anywhere near as hard as an Afflock’s dots, and Inescapable Torment won’t hit as hard as Divine Storm. While those talent builds have variety, the variety isn’t compelling enough to be a strong enough differentiator - at least to a certain portion of the playerbase.
The root of that issue seems to be that Shadow’s damage is simply distributed across too many abilities, watering them all down so the consequence is that even the “upgraded with talents” abilities do “meh” damage (with the exception of Mind Flay: Insanity). Honestly, part of me would be fine if we had a bit of ability pruning, or if ~30-40% of our casts were weak fillers, if it meant that power could be redistributed into talent choices so that those choices felt more powerful (“compelling”). But then, that would probably also mean more tradeoffs and Shadow’s untalented base kit feeling a bit weaker, which I’m not sure I would want.
Couldn’t agree more, there are times the whole community asks for something, and we always get some form of it but never what we actually asked for, so I stay silent at this point and hope for a great iteration. I still have some faith at some point we will get one, but I won’t set myself up for disappointment anymore.
I think each class is best when theres a dedicated developer for each class. Then at least there is a coherent creative vision, even if it’s not what everyone likes. The mosaic method right now isn’t it.
That is a very broad understanding on what I am talking about.
I have detailed out very specific changes multiple times with my various posts of feedback.
But the core point is that you can’t change your your gameplay to shift more priority into some types of spells vs other types of spells. No matter what, every Shadow Priest is using the same spells in roughly the same way. Meaning anyone facing a Shadow Priest won’t notice anything different and have to adjust to compensate.
The result is that no matter what, every Shadow Priest has the same struggles that changing talents won’t alleviate. You can’t focus on high octane burst but fizzle out quickly for quick fights which makes AOE with many low health adds or adds above 8+ targets challenging.
I don’t get the same feedback when playing my Mage or Warlock or Shaman. Adds be damned be it many or not be it low health or not, I have the tools to deal with them. Then or course all other classes that are not casters have tools to deal with them as well as I have all classes max level and played 1 or multiple of their DPS specs and none of them have the level of inconsistency that Shadow has. I play Feral and not Balance so I can’t spec much on Balance but Feral doesn’t have those issues so that is at least an option if balance does have issues. But from what I’ve seen from other Balance druids, they don’t seem like they have issues.
Of course this is just from the standpoint of dealing quick damage and not limited or challenged when dealing with lots of targets or low health targets.
I also have many ideas that I would like implemented in some way to change things up in various ways. But this is not the post for that. I’ll post a revised version somewhere the next time that is appropriate like Midnight Alpha/Beta cycle as I’m hoping we will see what changes will be made or not and take it from there.
Which is a key point as to the result of the outcome we have been given as its a good time to be reminded that the Dev in charge of the Legion changes to Shadow left soon after for one reason or another. So the creator of the Shadow Priest vision we seen in Legion was just dropped entirely which explains why Shadow has so many issues in Legion in terms of balancing the top end by nerfing the scaling which affects the low end on a higher level resulting in the less geared to struggle in basic settings.
The main issue being centralized to the uncontrollable nature of Voidform as often in all content you just automatically activate Voidform even when you don’t want to like finishing a group of mobs in a dungeon and only THEN get into Voidform and as such you waste your Voidform traveling to the next pack of mobs which means you have to start from the base non Voidform with no insanity at the start of each group. Meaning only long lasting groups are the only time that works but that means you have to be doing high keys or with Fortified enemies. Normal dungeons or World content like world quests or PvP resulted in playing more outside of Voidform instead of inside Voidform which felt awful. Then in PvP a simple interrupt or silence can stop your entire Voidform moment because it actively reduces the duration of your Voidform and does so on a exponential level because of the draining mechanic.
These issues continued into BFA and were only somewhat alleviated with the Heart of Azeroth Essence system. I heard Shadow was promised some changes in BFA but those were never realized.
Then in Alpha of Shadowlands, Shadow fell over itself once all the BFA powers and of course the Legion Artifact long gone. That is when they finally realized the draining mechanic basic issues and it’s scaling problems and as such they removed the draining mechanic and brought back Devouring Plague to be a spender with other talents to fill in behind that gameplay loop.
But then the wow Dev that brought forth those changes for Shadow left.
Then in Dragonflight, the initial talent Trees released was Priest Class & Shadow and Druids Class and Balance I Believe. But then that dev that worked on Those trees left and nothing was done for the entire Alpha/Beta cycle until like I think 1 months or so before release when they brought in the revised Shadow and Class tree with about 2 weeks of iteration then then it was pencils down as it was time to release.
Then the unfinished work in DF Beta with Shadow got attention in the first Major patch of DF which is what we are using today.
Which really means, we are still playing catch-up to the other classes in terms of being developed/designed with the same principles in mind as what we saw with the Power Word; GFY post, all the cool things like getting Spectral Guise and whatnot were all basically responded with a get bend attitude towards Priests.
Since then, radio silence.
I would say we are overdue for a hard look but they might just don’t give a damn at this point.
THIS is exactly what my point was. We have systems upon systems yet it lacks a clear goal or direction. Each verson or ‘fix’ doesn’t address the pain points Shadow faces.
Shadow does not need a rework. A rework means they build from the ground up and set a new foundation for the class. Shadow really doesn’t need that.
What shadow needs balancing and some minor improvements. AOE needs to be improved slightly. This can be solved pretty easily. I’d say shadows defensive also need a bit of an improvement by far some of the worst in the game.
I’d like to see some talents changed, possibly make shadows off healing more powerful than it is. Halo/Divine star feel kind of lame at this point after all these years and I’d probably change them entirely.
Shadow needs a talent tree. Right now the only impactful decision you make in the tree is whether you take Shadow Crash. Everything else is just an invisible passive damage increase and has no impact on gameplay whatsoever.
I hope so, it would be nice if they would communicate with us for once about it.
I get that they don’t put out statements because they might not be able to follow through, but I don’t think people would be upset if they just said “Hey we are working on some updates for the priest tree, shadow, and we are hoping to further refine holy/disc for 11.1.5, we can’t guarantee all changes to be complete by then, but currently that is our timeline goal”
Like it’s the years of silence and when we do get communication, it’s PW:GFY, that makes it feel like we are second class citizens in the eyes of developers.
Honestly, the DF S2 rework of shadow was very mediocre.
I enjoyed the S1 version more.
What I would want for s priest is this:
Link and sear on a choice node.
Less 2 talent nodes, more talents.
Mind spike and flay are 2 buttons that try to complete for the same thing, do this instead.
Flay is the main filler, spike is a proc only ability, that can be used off the GCD and in the middle of other casts like fire blast, it procs moderately frequently, not too frequent not too little, deals above average damage per execute, higher than mind blast, about as strong as void bolt, and generates 10 or 12 insanity, so a hefty amount of it.
Then make spike and shadow word death with deathspeaker or sub 20% proc apparitions.
I honestly have no idea why people enjoyed the Searing Nightmare gameplay loop. I remember playing it in Shadowlands and early DF and it was just downright awkward to use on-top of forcing you to pick either having AOE or single target damage.
I have no idea how Shadow plays this expansion though since I haven’t actually tried it.
Also, with a potential Holy Paladin meta on the horizon next season I’m already predicting the comeback of Shadow. There’s a lot of humanoids for mind soothe skips and the dungeons aren’t stacked with poisons and curses.
I think shadow needs a lot of work, for dragonflight they threw in a bunch of things and didnt really bother to make them all fit properly.
Felt like they got halfway through a rework then pulled out
There arent really any distinct builds in the spec, the tree really isnt living up to its potential.
Aoe feels like a bandaid fix, it works but relying on shadow crash to cover all your dot needs has completely consumed all of the dot gameplay. Id like something better designed.
The only cooldown i really enjoy is mindbender with inescapable torment, ascension feels like nothing and void eruption has keybinding issues (2 minute cd that turns into a spam every 3rd gloabl spell). Mind bender with inescapable torment actually changes your rotation without adding bloat by adding sw:d into the rotation. Better than void bolt imo and far more interesting that dark ascension.
I think dark eruption could potentially be reworked into something closer to legions shadow priest by replacing devouring plague, so you bank insanity, erupt and spam void bolt till insanity runs out. Make it a capstone in one of the corners so its build defining and not just something you pick up on the way to something else.
Speaking of keybinds, neither VT or Sw:p do anything. Simultaneously bloated while not pressing many keys is bad design. Their situations hardly warrant their use, i think both need a rework. Or at least the whole class does to accomodate what were once core spells back into the gameplay loop
Id like to see dot gameplay get an overhaul, having 100% of our aoe damage come from a 20s cd feels really awful, but having no dot spread was worse. Id love a more clever mechanic to handle dot spread and to bring back dot gameplay. Shadow crash is a band aid, its good for what it does but its pretty lazy design. Its like the shortest path they could take to a solution.
There is absolutely validity to complaints about shadow priests design, its half baked and needs refinement.
I haven’t done any pve in some time, simply because sp is so uninspiring. It’s okay in pvp, I mean it still functions well. It’s not super fun, but it gets the job done. I genuinely miss raiding, but I won’t go back until sp gets some updates and animations