Anyone else feel shadow should have drifted more toward a vampiric or blood magic theme, rather than void?
I mean we’ve had vampiric embrace and touch since vanilla, and we’ve always been a caster that heals by harming others.
It’s just weird to me that Blizzard randomly decided to go full void theme for no apparent reason.
We could’ve had a more vampiric/blood magic vibe, and I think it would have really set us apart from other classes.
It would’ve also fit well with how priests are life/death themed. One spec helping and healing life, while the other devours and destroys it.
I know void does the same, but it just seems so muddy to distinguish, especially when you look at void elves. Basically an entire race of shadow priests that learned to be other classes… Like wat??
Idk, I just think shadow is in a weird spot now. I love the playstyle, don’t get me wrong… but lore, and fantasy wise, I feel like we kind of got a little lost
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I’ve rolled a few Shadow Priests before. I want to like them but while flashy they just feel so unimpactful unlike a Shaman where your spells have that OOMPH to them.
I feel the void theme is just them focusing on the Old Gods this expansion and with the introduction of Void Elves. Alongside it being less about Life and Death but rather Light and Void.
I’d like a Vampire/Blood magic theme but I’m sure Blood Death Knights took the cake for that.
The more I read about the original Shadow Priest the more I dislike about the current one that exists. Especially one that is supposedly “incomplete”.
Only reason I gravitate to SP is that I really have a fondness for channeled beam attacks and SP is one of the few that has that.
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My personal favorite time of SP was the BC/Wrath era. When they made VE an aura and VT used to return mana to your party it was great being used for utility. I do like the idea of a blood/vamp approach honestly that it seemed to have back then.
I still keep wishing they would go back to it, but the game has changed way too much for that to ever happen.
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I think one of the easiest ways to resolve the issues with Shadow is, don’t compromise. Give everyone exactly what they want.
Give Priests a 4th spec: Shadow & Void as two separate specs.
Void is Legion Shadow.
Shadow is MoP Shadow.
This shouldn’t be very hard, you slap on a 4th spec, you restore two past designs, you do some numbers tuning, and then everyone is happy.
If you like Void’s Clarity of Power gameplay spamming your two buttons, it’s still here!
If you want to be a DoTty vampire again, it’s back!
They did it for Feral when Bearcat was too thematically complicated: so there is precedent. Splitting Feral into Feral & Guardian has been a resounding success.
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But it absolutely hasn’t though
Feral has, for a good while now, been a confused mess. It seems that with the likes of Druid one spec ends up lost, the sacrificial lamb to allow more time and focus on the other 3 specs (yes Guardian is pretty bad currently too, but Feral has consistently been mucked about)
So if we’re going by the example of Druid one of Priest’s 4 specs (likely a DPS spec) is just going to end up a muddled mess that peeps can barely play half the time
I still feel, as I did when they were introduced, that Void Elves got as racial abilities things that would have been S Priest abilities otherwise. And yes, I’d like Shadow and Void to be two different specs, of course if Priests get 4 specs everybody else will wonder where their new spec is as well.
Blood magic feels more dk to me.
Maybe instead of two specs shadow could work like Boomies. With their sun and moon casting? You could balance between sucking the life out of a target healing your raid, and restoring mana to the group. Then when you’ve fed enough you could swap over to void form and it’s mind with the void.
Splitting Feral & Guardian successfully separated their identities. In Legion both Feral & Guardian were very well designed. The decision to split the specs was the right call.
That BFA class design has ruined most specs feel from Legion, does not reflect the decision to split Guardian from Feral. That Blizzard devs work off a 2+ year design cycle is not a strong criticism of that decision either.
Splitting the specs was the right call for Bearcat, and it’s the right call if the goal is to keep Void-themes without losing Shadow identity.
Correct me if I am wrong, but shadow and void magic are the same thing.
What drives me a little crazy is that light forged draenei can be shadow priests. They are light infused people! Just like holy undead priests. The undead are held together by shadow magic!
Feral was not well designed in Legion, it was near unplayable at the outset of Legion and proceeded to have a ton of bandaids slapped onto it
Beginning of BfA Feral literally was beginning of Legion Feral, all they did going from Legion to BfA was tear all the bandaids off (why, you might ask? Honestly who knows, like who the heck do they even have working in their class design department now because that sort of decision is straight nonsensical)
Sure, but that’s not the point. The point is that Feral doesn’t have a solid identity…like at all. The spec is constantly flicking about, Blizz very clearly have no idea what to do with it
It’s gone back and forth between being bleed oriented and direct damage oriented for a large portion of its existence, heck just this expac it’s gone from being the “king of ST” (as Blizz proclaimed, to excuse Ferals abysmal AoE) to now being stronger in AoE than they are in ST
I honestly think few specs in the game have been as terribly handled as Feral. It’s known as the “red-headed step child” of the Druid family for a reason, that really isn’t hyperbole when it comes to Feral
To clarify, I don’t disagree with the premise of splitting Shadow. I just hold concerns as to Blizz being able to execute it in a way that isn’t an absolute Trainwreck
I mean, they seem to be barely able to create engaging specs as is. I’m always dubious about adding more specs (and classes) because Blizz have shown time and time again that they’re struggling to maintain healthy design and balance with the currently available specs and classes
Emm, not at all. Just scrap voidform and restore Cata or Wrath playstyle imo.
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That would involve them admitting they were wrong, or having the desire to fix what they messed up. It would also mean they stopped lavishing gifts for a brief moment on the Druid and Mage Class, and that is by my estimates, highly unlikely.
I just wound up moving on. I love your ideas as always, but I’ll level with you. They just don’t care Yvaelle. They are doing Shadow Priests dirty the same way they did Warlocks dirty in Warlords of Draenor. If they cared a whit about Shadow Priests, Voidform would already of been deleted at the start of BFA.
We both have been playing Priest for a study of years now, and yet look at Inscription this expansion. Druids get 3 new Glyphs, Mages get 4 variants of a single spell. Everyone else basically got told in a passive way: “The rest of you don’t rate. You are not a priority class for us.”
It’s utter horse crap to be honest.
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Something like 30 new druid skins have come out since shadow got the purple fart cloud shadowform. Druids got entire new character models as artifacts ffs.
Not at all. This was always one of my problems with Shadow Priest. The vampiric allusions just make no sense at all in the scope of priesthood. I always felt like the spec should have been styled as a false prophet or cult leader. You could still have some self healing through damage, but more as a sadistic revelry in your ability to manipulate others than some obscure degree of actual vampirism coming out of left field with no ties to priesthood whatsoever.
Who do i talk to about exchanging voidform for orbs and plague again?
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I don’t know but let’s get it done.
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False, dont make priests bloodsuckers, voide theme is more appropriate