yall need to start going to church… like for realz…
I’ll admit that, despite playing priest since 2005, shadow is a newer concept to me. I played the spec off and on over the years, but didn’t commit to it fully until end of WoD/Legion’s beginning. Much of this is my own opinion, or rehashed from previous comments. I wasn’t a hardcore raider or PVPer, but I did arena and saw heroic raid tiers.
In Legion, they made shadow extremely reliant on the legendary weapon passives to keep it propped up (including StM, which [in my opinion] was an insanely fun mechanic at the time until it was nerfed.) With BFA, and the exceptionally slow start to see shadow get the changes it needed (…and just to be nerfed time and time again), we have Azerite and Corruption to at least keep us kind of relevant. Just not relevant enough to be included in M+ all that much and our contribution in PVP is a joke.
I know a lot of people have said this before me. At this point I’m simply reiterating like I said at the start, but Blizz needs to make certain (anything at this point will help, honestly) spells baseline or tweak VF to have the class stand up on its own two feet. Am I optimistic? Not in the least, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that someone sees this thread.
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What does this mean?
i think he means we need divine intervention for blizz to fix shadow which it’s starting to feel like it’s true. watch covenant abilities and skill line become the new corruption/azerite gear crutch shadow leans on.
P.S: just wanna say i been seeing you Yvaelle around the forums and just wanna say thanks for keeping the forums going and keep up the hard work. the only way blizz listens if you complain long enough (hopefully)
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It’s a team effort, there are lots of us being vocal 
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I’ve played a Priest since vanilla Beta as my only class until around MOP and I started trying out others but priest was always my main and shadow was the go to for the majority of my time. Once Legion came, I tried the VF mechanic just a little bit but it felt awful so I for the first time benched my priest as just a trade skill/order hall gold maker in lieu of the new class on the block, the DH.
I loved playing my priest in both PvP & PvE over the years.
So coming from that perspective, I don’t think we can ever go back to something pre cata as that’s to basic for the current game. But having some form of game play Cata like with Dark Archangel Burst play or the Mop/Wod shadow orb alteration play and then the Clarity of Power play specifically in Wod was fun.
I doubt it would make it in Shadowlands but it would be nice if we could get max level talents that let us choose playstyles we had in the past like those i mentioned.
So if we go back to the shadow orbs mechanic, here are some talent choices that could be gameplay style choices.
Baseline without talents:
Shadow Orbs (5 total orbs): Your Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death & Auspicious Spirits (if talented) generate 1 shadow orb. Mind spike consumes your shadow orbs to spread your dots to as many targets as shadow orbs consumed within 5 yards.
Note: You are able to cast Mind Spike without shadow orbs, it just wont spread your dots.
Playstyle (Max talent choices):
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Devouring Plague (Single Target Dot focused): Consume all shadow orbs to afflict the target with a disease that causes heavy Shadow damage over 5 sec. Damage caused by the Devouring Plague heals the caster for 20% of the damage done. Damage is increased by 15% for each orb consumed.
- How this works:
- Single Target: Cast your Vampiric Touch & Shadow Word: Pain, Build up Orbs & fill with Mind Flay. Then Cast Devouring Plague on high health target. If you can get orbs quickly before plague runs out, you can use Mind Spike to spread the Plague to other targets.
- How this works:
-
Dark Archangel (Multi Target Dot Focused): Your damage over time abilities deal 25% more damage for 3 sec. In addition, your Mind Flay deals 100% additional damage. Duration is increased per shadow orb consumed up to 15 sec.
- How this works:
- Single & Multi Target: Cast your Vampiric Touch & Shadow Word: Pain, Build up Orbs & fill with Mind Flay. Then Mind Spike with 1-5 orbs to spread your dots to other targets and increase all your dot damage for 3-15 sec.
- How this works:
-
Clarity of power (Multi Target/Single Target Dot/Dotless weaving focused): Mind Spike now consumes your Shadow Word: Pain & Vampiric Touch to deal its entire damage and an additional 10% per Shadow Orb Consumed. In addition, Mind Spike, Mind Blast & Shadow Word: Death deals 40% additional damage to targets not affected by your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch. Also reduced the cooldown on Mind blast by 3 sec and makes it instant cast.
Note: Mind Spike will not spread dots with this talent.- How this works:
- Single Target: Cast your Vampiric Touch & Shadow Word: Pain, Build up Orbs & fill with Mind Flay. Then Mind Spike with up to 5 orbs and do massive burst. Then you can continue to burst without re-applying dots if target dies soon or re-apply dots if target doesn’t die soon and start rotation again.
- Multi-Target: Dot up primary target and Mind Spike, Mind Blast & Shadow Word: Death secondary targets to gain the 40% damage bonus.
- How this works:
They can still use some tweaking.
But the goal is to bring shadow orbs back as I think talents/game play is a lot more flexible with shadow orbs as a mechanic. And it can really bring to the table, play styles that everyone can enjoy.
Edit:
So for those of you wanting to keep the insanity mechanic. How about this.
Take the Demon Hunter Demonic Mechanic where upon using Eye Beam, you go into a Demonic form for 5 seconds. What this does is limit you to a short but guaranteed duration.
So lets apply this concept to the Shadow Priest / Void Form.
Max level Talent
Void Form: Activated by casting Void Bolt (Cost 5 Shadow Orbs). Twists your Shadowform with the powers of the Void, increasing spell damage you deal by 20%. Granting an additional 0.5% Haste every 1 sec. Lasts 5 sec. Mind Blast increases the duration by 2 sec, Void bolt by 5 sec.
- How this works:
- Once you enter Void Form, you now have a very short window of time with an increase to your spell damage and more and more haste. You use Mind Blast to extend the duration as much as possible and once you get 5 Shadow Orbs, you can use Void Bolt for decent damage and extend the duration by an additional 5 sec.
So the skill cap to this is doing what you can to constantly get Shadow Orbs to Void Bolt and extend Void Form while having an increasing easier time to do this with Mind Blast cool down becoming shorter and short with the haste gains. - If badly played or poor gear or a mix of both. You should be able to have 2-3 Shadow Orbs at minimum once Void Form fades and then only require around 10 sec to get back in again. Or snipe some Shadow Word: Deaths and get right back in as soon as you got out. But doing this, you loose out on the stacking haste gain. So you want to try to stay in as long as possible but its not too much punishment if you fail to do so.
- You will no longer need to ramp up as quickly/much as you can easily build Shadow Orbs with a mix of Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death & Auspicious Spirits (if talented) .
- Once you enter Void Form, you now have a very short window of time with an increase to your spell damage and more and more haste. You use Mind Blast to extend the duration as much as possible and once you get 5 Shadow Orbs, you can use Void Bolt for decent damage and extend the duration by an additional 5 sec.
12 Likes
I’d like to share an idea I have regarding movement issues.
So I cant recall if voidshift is still in the game via PvP talents etc. and too lazy to look it up.
If its not then we can use that name for a movement ability where it would read like this…
VoidShift
Instant 30 sec cooldown
30 yr range
Shift your current location to appear next to a party or raid member.
- How it works:
Basically its a mix between a mages Blink and a Warlocks Demonic Circle. Only that you can only make use of it if your grouped up with an ally. Its like a reverse life grip (Leap of Faith) but on a shorter CD. So it assumes your ally is in the correct spot before you use it as you will appear right next to them. This could have a down side though if you need to move but not be next to someone. So its on a short CD to instantly move from your position to that of an ally but with a risk/reward tied to it.
Also, I would love if we could get spectral guise back. omg. please give that back.
Spectral Guise
Instant 30 sec cooldown
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.
- How it can work:
Maybe attach a movement speed to this. Though it should keep its stealth mechanic else its just a boring 30 sec cd speed increase at that point.
2 Likes
I love your suggestion and totally agree that shadow orb mechanic can be developed into so many different play-styles. I think, but then again I’m not a game dev, that builder-spender mechanic is a strong core mechanic that you could take it and run with it to create so many different play-styles becuase it falls down to the different choices of spenders provided and how they function. however with that being said I highly doubt shadow orbs are coming back so we might need to think more about how to make voidform work.
I don’t think voidform at its core is bad. it’s like devouring plague except rather than a debuff on target it’s a buff on you but the way it is implemented in the game is so broken and borderline toxic that I personally find it astonishing Blizz didn’t Fix/remove it yet.
any spec mechanic that requires you to choose between face tanking a fight mechanic or maintaining your dps is just broken.
P.S: I would love to see voidform work if
1)they remove the ramp up mechanic( which than removes the peak window aspect)
2) Give us the voidform buff up front (which would fix the “would i die if i face tank fight mechanic to maintain my peak window” because you can easily drop voidform and all you have to do is get back into it)
3) give us slight mobility in voidform (exp:channel mind flay while moving)
4) make our spell interact with each other (right now all you do is mindblast and voidbolt they both don’t interact with each other)
these are some of the ideas to fix voidform however I do think the spec needs more utility defensive CDs
The issue to me with Builder spender is that its very easy to get too close to Affliction in style. Shadow for forever was always seen as a watered down Aff.
Yea I understand the reasoning for the attempted unique play style in the form of Void Form. But good grief did they mess it up. So bad that I just refused to play it because my over 10+ years playing shadow just became an abomination in play style compared to what I was used to. I was just saying a whole lot of nope and found the DH visually appealing and actually fun. Now here we are. Would love to go back to Priest but I want it to be fun again.
2 Likes
This was wonderfully described and seriously needs some consideration to make this class actually fun to play.
Now watch as blizzard ignores it because ‘they know better’ and all the priest forums get swamped with their defenders to say ‘Lol, roll another class if you hate it so much.’
Jee, it’s almost like having any criticism with blizz’s choice to put a few more nails into spriest coffin’s is met with lazy shrug. They know what they’re doing, and they don’t give a damn about player satisfaction if they’ve already got your money.
4 Likes
Priest Recommendations::::::Get rid of void form. Keep void bolt and make it the new mind spike with proc of instant cast or make shadow word death have a proc chance to 100% crit and not hurt when casted; maybe heal? Give Devour plague back, combine embrace into vamp touch, and give back flash heal. Reflective shield baseline. Disc get renew and prayer of mending back. Miss the days when priest was utility and gaining health while destroying your opponent. Since we are void priest now Some extra ideas: Spectral Guise, Mind Sear spreads your shadow word: pain, Inner fire; maybe it could be like lightning shield but holy fire damage with armor?:::::: Priest good things: Greater Fade, Horrify, shadow mend for disc, and Misery for PvE. Summary: void form is crap. We do not like standing still channeling. Let us play. Stop putting a mini game in our class. Shadow is like wow current state: to many systems and not worth the effort.
4 Likes
Amazingly well written, and I’m giving it the 200th Like accordingly.
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Guys I know I might of have said this before but please keep an eye on the alpha official priest feedback. Vampyral basically explained all that we have been discussing so please leave a like on her comments. It’s important because Blizz is for sure monitoring that post so leaving a like to us is like voting to show what we support.
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So my notes & opinions about all these ideas:
Get rid of void form.
- Agreed, its has a whole host of issues that have been dissected enough that i don’t need to regurgitate them again.
Keep void bolt and make it the new mind spike with proc of instant cast.
- This can work sure, but why is it needed? Do you want to keep the animation? the name?
-
How do you purpose it could proc instant cast? Maybe with a talent like the old From Darkness comes light?
-
Regarding spell effects: Personally, I like when Shadow Priests didn’t have much spell animation. In PvP environments it was always funny when people didnt know you were nuking them down be it you were hidden behind a corner or in a team fight. It keeps us off the radar.
- To illustrate this point, when you see a mage casting a Pyro blast, you know he is cooking up some damage and you will start getting ready to CC him or activate your damage mitigation ability to reduce its effectiveness. And when you see it flying in the air, you know to activate your immunity or for us, our Dispersion.
- But with our old priest abilities, they only time they KNOW your melting them is when your start your Mind Flay cast. Before then they just know they are getting dotted from someone somewhere and then without the travel animation / time from Mind Blast, Mind Spike, Shadow word: Death they start getting chunked down which gives you that nice little out of the shadows moment but its too late for them lol.
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Make shadow word death have a proc chance to 100% crit and not hurt when casted; maybe heal?
- I rather not. Having the Shadow word: Death damage reflected back unto ourself’s is great in many ways.
- It can be used to counter a CC like Sap/Blind/Poly/Repentance etc. you get the idea.
- It adds flavor and a sense of "Oh no, do I really want to use this now? Should I shield myself prior? get topped first? etc.
- Instead, how about make a talent around this to modify how it interacts with you. Either reduce the damage done or negate it all together. Or keep no damage reflected back at baseline and add the damage reflection back as a PvP talent. However I don’t like that route because it then just becomes a button you press, no thought about it. I think the Kiss/Curse should be baseline with this ability.
Give Devour plague back.
- Regarding Devouring Plague: Sure, it works. I will welcome it back but if they plan to give something else or in addition then I’m open to ideas and willing to see what they can do instead. So long as it works with the spec and not counteracts it and makes it un fun and clunky.
combine embrace into vamp touch.
- This is a simple change that I can get behind.
- Let’s make it a survival/healing talent that the passive makes Vamp Touch give you x% HP back each tick (5 target max). In addition, you get an active ability that is Vampiric Embrace and that turns all your Shadow Damage abilities into a party/raid wide healing cool down.
- It can do healing by x% or x% of damage done both the passive / active CD form. I’ll let the balancing figure out the numbers.
give back flash heal
- Agreed, I think if we want to risk dropping shadow form and heal up OR actually do Priestly things and heal an ally, we should be able to do so.
Reflective shield baseline
- Why do we need this baseline or at all? I never understood the need for this. If anything, only Disc priests should get this. Not the class as a whole.
Disc get renew and prayer of mending back
- I stopped playing disc a while back so I cant say much on this but not having these 2 spells is a reason why I stopped disc so…
Spectral Guise
- Agreed, it should be back as a talent. Very fun and I dont think its broken? Is their any offical word why they removed it?
- Actually I bet they removed it because it was too “shadowy” and not “voidy” lol.
Mind Sear spreads your shadow word: pain
- Okay so I think ill get disagreements here but this is my thoughts.
- Having both a castable/channeling AOE dot + castable rotting dots on targets seems really bad.
- Your damage will have to be heavily favored in one or the other which means 1 is almost pointless to use. Or they are favored the same which means if you don’t use 1, then your lacking DPS. So cleave fights will be crap because we have to dot all targets and sear them just to make the rot damage decent. Then we loose our on castable nuke abilities.
- I don’t think having a channeling AOE that spreads dots will be great with balance reasons. It will need to be really weak damage to have this luxury. I rather have more damage in my casted dots.
- Having both a castable/channeling AOE dot + castable rotting dots on targets seems really bad.
- Taking in those points, I think we should just ditch / remove Mind Sear.
- It was great to get in Wrath but I this it causes more issues then it fixes in current game.
Inner fire; maybe it could be like lightning shield but holy fire damage with armor?
- Why? Just for flavor? I don’t have any ideas on what to do with inner fire. I’d say shadow doesn’t need it and to just remove it but Disc and Holy need something to up there base defense and I think its an iconic ability that the entire class should get. So yea, not sure what to do with it aside from not touching it.
5 Likes
Pretty much agree with everything this fellow says.
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These both made me laugh/cry. Priests needing to ask to be able to do Priest things again…like heal…
The void retcon flopped much like the “Old Gods” story line of BFA. We are headed into the SHADOW-lands. Time to fix the tentacles mistake.
9 Likes
lets form a prayer circle and pray WoD orbs come back with slight adjustments.
5 Likes
AKA: Things that will most likely never be implemented because “I” suggested them.
-First of all, I’d like to see our resource renamed first of all to “Sanity”. It seems weird that we burn Insanity to use this magic. Seems counter-intuitive to say the very least.*
-Second, Make Voidform an independent CD and maybe combine it with Power Infusion for Priests only. You get the Power Infusion / a DPS boost, and then you get Lingering Insanity.*
-Third, give a couple creative options for Sanity as a resource. I know we all like Devouring Plague, but the only issue I see on Shadow Orbs is the short duration of D.P. and it’s all or nothing style of popping it.*
Single Target:
What if we used Sanity to cast Void Entropy or a longer lasting but weaker D.P. for starters?
Other uses of sanity could be to maintain a buff akin to Dark Archangel, but which was important to making the rest of the spec tick, and had a passive buff like say old school Shadow-Weaving from Classic?
One idea that appeals to me is this. You know, Warlocks have had Curse of Shadow / Elements. So why not have a similar effect that while maintained buffs the Priests Haste some, and makes targets affected by our DoTs take 5% more Holy and Shadow damage? This would give a cool synergy with Disc Priests.
Another thing this Dark Archangel Buff (Or heck call it Entropic Radiance and give it a new effect since D.A. would be crazy dated as a spell effect goes now) could do, would be to allow Mind Spike to return in the form of the Surge of Darkness Proc (which IMHO should use the Shadow Orbs visual animation). I think Surge of Darkness was honestly Mind Spike’s it’s best iteration from MoP.
Finally Void Bolt would exist as a simple Resource dump.
Solving Shadow AoE:
To solve AoE I’d recommend a secondary “Chakra” that overwrites Dark Archangel, and causes Void Bolt to hit all targets (again up to 5 or whatever Mage / Warlock can do), that are affected by your DoTs.
Basically spiritual successor / reincarnation of the Cunning of the Cruel Trinket. Additionally Instead of activating Mind Spike on Procs, this buff would enable the use of Shadow Crash. Then we would have literally no need for Mind Sear at all.
Other Ideas:
Last but not least, Shadowfiend needs a major overhaul. I’d like to see it turned into a pet we can use as an open world tank, at the cost of giving it a portion of our dps power (say 10%) with an ability to consume it’s energies not unlike what Warlocks do with Grimoire of Sac.
Unlike Warlocks, Priest would be expected in a DPS situation to not use the creature, as they wouldn’t be a true pet class. This would just be something to give Priests something they can quest in the open world with, and use to prevent being punched in the face by.
Alternatively get rid of Shadowfiend, and maybe bake the critter into our DPS CD, so that when we do Voidform, we might tear open Void Portals like the NPC mobs that allow Shadow Fiends to pop out for extra damage?
Mind you all of these ideas are super rough, but their ideas nonetheless.
Utility abilities like Spectral Guise, Shadow Tendrils, and so on would be other nice things to see return. Maybe a dark version of our Inner Fire spell called “Inner Darkness” or the like. I dunno.
One thing we need however to be ongoing with is our calls for them to get away from the Voidform / Insanity Drain crap we all hate first, and we need the Devs to speak to us rather than trying to run the clock out as they did the last 2 Alphas. We all know the silence is probably intentional so you can drop beta and say “Oh we’d… like to do something, but had no time. We’ll check back next expansion.”
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I’m genuinely confused why shadow/disc players want flash heal back so could anyone explain? Outside of being shadow locked in PVP shadow mend heals for a fair amount more than flash heal with the same cast time and cost. Is it just a thematic thing where people want it to be holy?
I know sometimes people get hung up on the “dot” but that’s not present out of combat and negligible in combat since normal damage usually cancels it out anyways. Not trying to be argumentative here- I just want to understand.