Shadow spec left for dead again

Classes Priest
41

I’ve primarily stayed pretty quiet on the development of Priest and Shadow basically because there was not much to actually give my thoughts on because it’s just been a massive confusing amalgamation mess.

My theory of the class developers having such a profound lack of understanding and will to inject the concept of fun and entertainment when it comes to what makes Priest and Shadow an enjoyable experience seems more true now then ever before.

I personally cannot figure out if what we are seeing is considered more of throw whatever at the wall and see what sticks or more of a complete rework because it feels like it’s a bit of both, but the only binding aspect of either option is that they are miles away from anything I would consider to be at the core of what Priest and Shadow should be in order to capture the essence of the class/spec while maintaining it’s cool and fun factor in regards to the gameplay excitement.

Makes me now think more than ever to think the best path forward is NOT a new vision for what Shadow should be but to go back to prior state of when Shadow captured the essence of its gameplay excitement and delivered it’s fun and engaging experience and I think now more than ever before would be the WoD iteration when we had things like…

  • Cascade
  • Mind Sear
  • Bursty Mind Blasts with multiple ways to amp up the damage and instant casts
  • Shadowy Apparitions that feed into rotation in granting Shadow orbs via Auspicious Spirits
  • Shadowform good by itself without the temporary Voidform buff state we have now which now lost its identity to question it’s very existence while adding unnecessary restrictions
  • Insanity on both Mind Flay and Mind Sear that was active on every cast of Devouring Plague and can be used multiple times since it was NOT based on a per cast but a self buff timer that you can exploit by getting a full cast when used at 0 seconds left on the clock
  • Mind Spike was available and most importantly Optional that added extra ways to play and allowed a vastly different gameplay style that is more suited for short burts run and gun PvP like environment
  • Shadow Word: Death having a solid identity of being an execute spell and really ramping up your gameplay loop during execution phases
  • Shadowfiend actually being useful since mana was already becoming a lesser issue but we still used mana instead of insanity as a resource so it still served a purpose
  • Off healing capability with Cascade and Spot healing actually noticable
  • Spectral Guise to avoid damage mechanics that was useful in both PvE and PvP
  • Every spell was great baseline and didn’t need multiple power ups just to become noticable
  • Mastery that didn’t need to be activated first before becoming useful, it just simply worked passively to enhance what you already do normally

Look, it may seem basic in comparison but you can’t argue that it simply worked and if the goal for midnight is basically going back to basics by simplifying the overall gaming experience then this would have made even more sense to entertain and go back to a simple yet effective design and then build from there upon those strong foundations.

But alas, we now find ourselves upon the brink of irrelevancy as now the new cool Shadow/Void thing is the new Devourer Demon Hunter spec that seems to have siphoned all the cool Void ideas away from something that could have instead made Shadow a more cool spec and brought it up to current class design standards but instead Shadow is now arguably going to become it’s most unlikable state in its history with no clear direction and any sense of fun and engaging gameplay be reduced to boring and bland while being ineffective and incomplete leaving no answer for even more things than it ever had in its past.

All I will say now is that this is why I am not for supporting a new direction as you can clearly see that whomever is in charge of the Priest changes, they are not equipped with the knowledge and experience to understand what makes playing a priest fun and enjoyable experience and therefore should not be trusted with any new vision for what Priest and Shadow should become.

Stick with what works. It’s really that simple.

8 Likes
42

I totally agree, I’ve missed your posts, excellent as always, thank you!

1 Like
43

Why do we still have Voidform ? The insanity drain playstyle we had in Legion gone in Shadowlands, since then they’ve change the spell too much that none can recognize it as Voidform.

Even the players who like it despite all the problems it had in Legion hate it now because is a shadow of what it used to be. The fact we gonna have the same playstyle in DH in Midnight only shows Blizz don’t care about Priest community like if we didn’t pay the game like the others and we play for free. It’s a slap into the face to those who liked and wanted the playstyle come back for their spec and is disrespectful for all the priest community who had prayed for some real attention for years.

1 Like
44

If we’re going to keep one thing as a major cd I’d rather it be voidform, as that has an actual impact on gameplay instead of just being “Hit buttons 15% faster”

The state it’s in currently on alpha is woeful, agreed, but I’d still rather have a cooldown that does something over one that’s just stats. Especially when shadows core rotational gameplay is as barebones and uninteresting as it is.

45

At this point it’s too late in the development cycle for major changes. What you see is basically what shadow is going to be for the next 2-3 years.

If you want to play the modern shadow then it’s time to reroll DH.

46

That’s the thing. We didn’t appear in alpha with major reworks.

Beta can still offer such opportunities but its very rare. Last time it happened was during sl and it was half azz just to calm us down. The. The dev quit afterwards.

This is what shadow will be until next expac, again.

I disagree.

Shadow spec never hand a full complete designs. The OG devs on video even admitted this and laughed about it.

What we need is a dev for priest who is given time to play the class and read it’s lore, as well communicate with the priest community.

Then redesigned priest as a whole for it to have its space for once.

This expansion was the best opportunity to do it. But obviously it’s clear to me that this class is cooked

1 Like
47

Yogg is good? Since when, all I do now when I see it is get reminded that we have a lesser form of Demo Warlocks Doomguard that is harder to summon

48

It’s good for the cost of a single talent point. Most points are barely worth 1-2% whereas he’s worth maybe 4-5.

49

I do find that version of Shadow more fun, but I don’t believe that going back to that system would solve anything at all.
WoD was fun for Shadow in its time, but I don’t think it would work well in the faster-paced version of the game we have today.

I personally believe, as I’ve stated before, that one of the main reasons Shadow is so broken is because so much of the older iterations still lingers, Voidform being a prime example.
It used to work back in Legion and BFA when it was a core ability that you pressed consistently, but now that it’s turned into a 2-minute cooldown, it’s just boring.
I don’t want to be forced into a 2-minute CD just to keep my DoTs up on more than six targets.

I believe Shadow really does need a new rework, a full, ground-up rework that tears everything apart and rebuilds it properly.
However, since we’re heading into Beta on 11/11, I don’t think that amount of work is possible within the limited time left.
What is possible, even during Beta, is removing some talent points like Fiend/Bender, pruning both the spec and class trees, and maybe changing the Mastery to something that actually works better with our DoTs than the current one.
Perhaps they could change Void Volley into an Insanity AoE spender instead of keeping it locked behind another ability.
Or rework how Voidform functions, make it “twist” our current DoTs so they tick faster, spawn more Apparitions, and cause Mind Blast to deal more damage and/or hit all dotted targets, etc.

1 Like
50

I don’t care what label you want to give Shadow.

I care about how it felt to play and it is my belief that WoD had the absolute best iteration of Shadow as it had access to multiple different play styles wrapped up in a single spec allowing for short form content like dungeons and PvP as well as long form content like raids.

While playing Shadow in WoD, you had access to the tools and utility needed to spot heal to an effective level, avoid mechanics or skip things using Spectral Guise and just generally not fighting against itself like forcing to pre apply dots to targets to gain full damage bonus as we do now or heck, you can just go full dotless if you wanted to or go full rot damage with everlasting Devouring Plague spams.

You had options in how you played and pending the choice and play style preference, you can have at least 2 completely different Shadow Priests that both are doing competitive damage while having vastly unique way of playing.

I could care less about a cohesive vision, that will always be a secondary feature after gameplay mechanics.

With the mass reduction in addon use and healers getting interrupts pulled back and the overall simplification of gameplay with the overall changes to the classes across the board, I think it would be the perfect time to revisit a gameplay style that mimics that of WoD Shadow and then fill in the holes from there.

It’s no secret that with all the changes going online for Midnight that the games pace will be vastly more slower and more inline with the pace of WoD compared to live today.

However, I’m an not under the illusion to think it will happen, not this late in the development cycle.

It’s just interesting to think about so much wasted effort for barely anything positive. Such a waste.

5 Likes
51

Yogg is numerically good, but it’s a really terrible design and it’s extremely ugly. It’s a perfect example of Blizzard putting no effort into priest.

Does it affect gameplay? No.

Does it have new, thematic particles? No.

Do you notice it when it happens? No.

Is it thematically cool? No.

It’s just a miss in every way except for the damage it usually does.

1 Like
52

Just unsubbed if this is what shadow is going to be then I am out. I stuck out in hopes we would get something like mind sear back yet here we are with less and psychic link still around.

vote w wallets

53

Yea you had some choices back then. I do agree on that.

But Blizzard did try to balance around two different styles of play just last patch with Spike and DA. They did indeed pull it off. But considering the state that Shadow is in currently I would not really want Blizzard to do it again. Not before they have a foundation that actually works atleast.

I havent really looked that much into Dunegons/Raids in the Alpha so I dont know if its slower and/or easier.

Yea its really sad that so much potential is just wasted because no Dev wanna touch the spec and actually work on it.

54

Just because you have a different cooldown and a different filler does not mean you play different.

You still prioritize targets having your dots on them and pressing the same buttons.

With WoD, you can make Mind Blast always instant cast or you can get what we have now and get procs to reset it and make it instant cast but that is not always guaranteed.

You can choose to go heavy into dot damage or you can disregard dot damage almost entirely or you can have a healthy mix of both.

You can amp up your Mind Sear, Mind Spike and Shadow Word: Death so that their damage takes priority or you can amp up your Devouring Plague damage by increasing its uptime to an insane levels then you basically make it your most used spell in a spamming nature where it would totally replace spells like Mind Spike due to its dot ripping mechanic and thus counter to that entire gameplay style.

WoD had a lot more depth when it came to how a Shadow Priest player chooses to play the spec than any other time in history.

The reintroduction of Mind Spike was a failure from the start and it never got fixed. It failed because they never introduced a reason to use Mind Spike over Mind Flay and so it was just left up to a players preference based on the spell itself, not mechanics that influence the spell you want to use. Also the fact that it was tied as a choice talent to replace instead of add another as an option didn’t help.

There is no comparison with what you are mentioning. WoD worked, the most recent one you mention was an abomination.

Overall in Midnight, things will be slower because you don’t have to react at super speed levels to things due to the arms race of add-ons doing so much heavy lifting no longer will be in effect.

So now that they don’t have to compete with the power of add-ons, they don’t have to make things as complex which allow them to simplify the requirements to deal with mechanics which then gives them the ability to scale back the tools people use which you can see in the results of the class changes across the board.

1 Like
55

Trying to figure out if this is the course of action I should take as well, unfortunately I mother a guild, and I don’t think it’s fair for me to abandon folks or leave things to an officer. I have serious thinking to do.

56

this wont work unforunately because too many people play wow and wow has no competition yet.

We will have to wait for AIon 2 and pray NCSOFT doesnt f it up.

The max you can do is reduce priest count. Then maybe something will change.

I for one will not touch it this expac.

57

Sadly, shadow is my true love and joy. I do love discipline, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be in amazing shape either, so for me there’s really no other class to play.

I really, just love Priest. :broken_heart:

I’m feelin bummed. Real bummed.

3 Likes
58

I feel you. I’ve been feeling like that for a bit.

Luckily for me at least, aff warlock lost malefic rupturr and got redesign s bit. So I feel safe. There is also devour dh left to try too.

Who knows try another class out during beta and see. If nothing works out, wish you the best on your sp!

59

Yes, that’s true that the different playstyles weren’t as big as they were in WoD.
The point that I was trying to make when I said that was that Blizzard should prioritize fixing the broken foundation of the spec before introducing different playstyles to Shadow again.

I don’t really see how WoD had more depth when it came to Shadow. Yes, you had some choices, sure, but players will always pick what’s best anyway. It wasn’t like every playstyle was competitive back in WoD, especially not in content like Challenge Modes, which later turned into Mythic+ in Legion.
WoD did work in its time, but I do not believe it would hold up in the current game.

I have really not seen anything that points to Midnight getting slower just because they remove the need for addons if you plan on playing at a high level. That is something good, in my opinion, considering how many addons and different WeakAuras are currently needed at a high level of play.

60

But you still had the choice.

Meaning in PvP you had more flexibility in short fights that can also carry over to PvE.

In PvE, sure some builds were better than other pending the fight but you still had the choice.

The point is, you had 2 very distinct builds that were vastly different from one another that is more radically different than even Archon and Voidweaver is today and going into Midnight.

That alone shows more thought was put into how WoD Shadow plays even if it was a happy accident, the results speak for themselves. Let’s say it was a happy accident, well that means the spec was designed so well that it accidentally became good and introduced multiple unique ways to play that were competitive at best and at worst still offered such a varying degree of play that finds it’s own nich uses pending the environment you are in.

If they could offer playstyle options that are radically different akin to what WoD offered and then in addition offered even more than that would be the goal and have satisfying results because the primary issue at had is the balance between free casting and run and gun casting as in environments like PvP or a hectic situation in M+ key affixes or Delves may lean more approachable when you can still be useful while moving often vs only having a single play style that you are FORCED to make work to the best of your ability.

I’ll narrow down the crux of the reason why I think WoD Shadow is the best Shadow iteration… best meaning compared to the rest, not perfect, just best.

If you remove the last row of WoD talents, it would just be an okay Shadow design that was basically MoP. But that last talent row offered so much flexibility in how you approach fights and it is that essence that should be captured and replicated. The funny part is that Void Entropy which just added a longer dot was never chosen because it would force you to loose access to either Clarity of Power or Auspicious Spirits and because of that, that became a joke talent.

Imagine if we had a third option that could be competitive and really stand up against the other 2 choices, an option that would lean more into channeling or Voidform in a better version than what Midnight is currently offering.

The point is that the different flexible play styles existed before and I think in order to maintain the core of what Shadow is, it needs drastic choices to switch up gameplay pending environments because our utility makes or breaks how useful you can be in situations like PvP vs Raids for example and because of that, one will suffer over the other in a really noticable way when forced to play a single gameplay style that is designed better for one or the other and knowing we don’t have to be forced down that road is reason enough to implement the choices mentioned and even more since it worked so well in WoD.

Otherwise, we get slop that we are seemingly getting going into Midnight which is disheartening and disappointing, made even more so knowing that the DH Devourer is getting all the new facelift stuff while Shadow is once again lost and ignored.

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