Many good points have already been made in previous posts as to the current weaknesses of Shadow in most scenarios, and ideas on how to improve them, so I will not rehash that here. However, a point that I think we may be missing is the concept of risk / reward, and mastery of one’s class being directly represented by their output, i.e. the design philosophies that Blizzard has so often described as fundamental to their process. It is a somewhat long post, but hopefully useful.
Shadow priest, relative to almost all other dps classes, is a difficult class to play. It has a complex rotation, significant ramp time, low survivability, and mediocre mobility. Not to mention its damage dependence on chain pulling in M+, or on target availability and uptime in raid. By playing a shadow priest, particularly if you main one, you will likely find that playing almost any other class is simple and straightforward. This, of course, serves to underline the frustration of the situation.
Given the complexities of rotation and playstyle, and the significant damage loss that results from even only minor mistakes, it would be logical to conclude that shadow priests would have strong output if played well, and exceptional output if one were to master that class. Not only is this not the case, I would argue that nearly the opposite state exists. Shadow priests must play very well to be even close to most other damage dealers, and in mastery of the class, they may still not hope to be the top of the meter in almost any scenario (given players of near equal ilvl on other classes).
What’s more, shadow priest output is -heavily- dependent on having the right azerite traits and corruption. A lot of classes are at the moment, e.g. all tanks on twilight dev, but there is a big difference between the relationship that shadow priest has with azerite and corruption, and that of other classes:
Shadow priests are only made viable by the right traits / corruption, other classes are enhanced by it.
If you were to attempt to play shadow priest without Chorus of Insanity, for example, you would be bottom of the dps pile in every scenario, even if you played the class perfectly. With Chorus of Insanity, we only open the door to being viable. Ultimately our output with CoI is still dependent on our individual performance, i.e. how long we are able to remain in voidform, as well as on factors that are often beyond our control, e.g. if chain pulls happen. Without CoI, our damage will be poor regardless of how well we play the class.
That our damage is so disconnected from skill and class mastery, without the requisite (and randomly obtained) azerite and corruption, seems to me an enormous problem. What’s more, it is immensely frustrating to see other classes (read almost all other classes) pulling more damage with a significantly simpler rotation / playstyle (e.g. dh, bm hunter, rogue, ele sham, etc.), as well as moving faster, and having access to cooldowns, defensives, utility, and CC that just don’t exist in the shadow priest toolkit.
Every expansion, and often between patches within an expansion, Blizzard cites new reasons for nerfing, and / or not fixing the many problems with shadow priests.
At first, they were a utility class, so naturally their damage would not be as high as pure damage classes. But currently, we do not have much utility (aside from MD, which is rarely useful, and VE…which is an extremely lack-luster ability, and one that I would happily see go away if it is the justification for our overall low output). No one brings a shadow priest to a group because they have MD or VE, so what’s the point of modifying our damage around them?
Then shadow priests were a niche class, able to excel at certain types of fights, such as spread cleave, but were less effective in others, such as pure single target. However, due to recent nerfs, we are poor at single target (without significant ramp, and time spent in execute range), poor at AOE (unless, again, the fight lasts for a long time), and only decent at spread cleave. Shadow priests have effectively gone from being very strong at one or two things and mediocre at the others, to being mediocre at one or two things, and notably weak at all others.
There is, also, no end in sight. Shadowlands appears to offer the same issues as we’ve encountered in BfA, but without the azerite and corruption lifejacket. Without major changes, which I have no confidence that Blizzard intends to make, Shadow priest looks to be entirely unplayable, both from an output sense and a ‘fun to play’ sense.
If the class is to remain as complex as it is, which I think is what drew most of us to it in the first place, the output should directly reflect the mastery of it. A skilled shadow priest should be doing at least as much, if not significantly more damage than a simple class. There is no reward for playing a complex class if it is otherwise.
What’s more, when a complex class has less utility, cc, survivability, mobility, and damage options than that of simpler classes, there is literally no reason to play it at all. Other than, of course, for love of the class. That love is, however, not enough to justify playing something that is unviable.
None of this should come as a surprise, just look at the splits of classes most represented in M+. Or listen to feedback from the alpha test (spriest performance without azerite and corruption). Or listen to feedback from the race for world first. Or most of the feedback in the forums. Shadow priests are pretty unanimously bottom tier.
If you want to see this perception in action, just try queuing for M+. You’re likely to be trying for a long time, which of course is due to community perception of spriest. While that is often unduly unfair, it is not, however, generated in a vacuum.
