The dev that designed this spec and quit should be barred from designing anything again. The rest of the devs ignoring and only nerfing it every patch should be ashamed of themselves.
Literally no other class is a garbage mess as spriest.
Also unless there is some massive tuning for s4 spriest is still going to be trash so just reroll now or quit.
Is it that bad? At a certain point I just gave up even off-spec’ing into spriest for QoL and just started running around doing everything in holy rather than dealing with shadow as it was. I kind of miss what I remember of shadow priest from like the old MoP days.
I think the design (not necessarily the tuning numbers) of spriest is generally good outside of aoe. It’s really aoe that is the sore thumb here design-wise, which is compounded by the fact that to enjoy one of the main pieces of content - M+ - you will be doing aoe most of the time.
Some improvements could also be made to the talents Surrender and Mind Bomb, as well as multi-dot, but imo these are not problems that serve as a barrier to being generally effective as shadow. Our talents generally have more versatility and selection than, say, mage.
I particularly like the design for shadow’s mastery, self-healing, defensives, most of the talents (except the above) and some of the visuals (the apparitions, shadow form, void torrent). An execute is also a huge convenience factor for me.
I think the guy who redesigned shadow did, overall, a decent - even good - job, flaws and imperfections notwithstanding. He didn’t knock it out of the park, but I’ll still take current shadow over the BFA version. Edit: especially in raids.
Honestly pretty much Shadow’s entire M+ problem this expansion has been: Searing nightmare feels bad because Misery sucks to lose, as it’s such a good QoL to Shadow gameplay.
Realistically, just putting them on a different talent line, making one of them baseline, or bringing in a whole ability to essentially function like Searing Nightmare but be less disruptive to the rotation would work. Like bring back Cascade but it leaves SW:P on targets and deals bonus damage to those already with SW:P, etc.
Seaing nightmare is the QoL though. Spriest in m+ was even more miserable when it didn’t have a true AoE spender. Splitting up SN and misery would be redundant because in any medium # of mob AoE scenario you’d be casting VE and then SN anyway. Misery would only make things feel better with low target cleave, and even then it’s not that problematic to use a couple globals for SW:P.
The real rotational annoyance is when you get close to the maximum mob threshold where you want to still maintain VE and cast SN, and then once you pass that threshold it also feels bad to not even get the benefits of VE anymore. This could partly be solved by just having void form apply VE.
I don’t view it that way, no. Searing Nightmare adds something to the spec. It’s an AoE insanity spender. Vampiric Touch makes multi-dotting multiple targets easier. Especially on a spec that isn’t entirely about DoT maintenance what with void form, and has other talents that work entirely off of VT, rather than SW:P. Psychic Link/AS don’t feel worth it when you’re not applying VT - despite Psychic link feeling pretty fun to use, and Spirits being a really unique passive for the spec that most people like the look of.
Yes, exactly. Not every fight in M+ scenarios are pulls that require SN - Losing Misery/Twist feels very bad in those moments. Even just moments where your tank takes it a little slow, paying those globals is significant DPS loss, and there’s no way around it - it doesn’t feel good. You seem to get that in your second paragraph.
Sure. That’s another way to do it. But the reason SN doesn’t feel good is specifically because of not benefiting from VE in situations that you want to.
Only for low-target cleave, which isn’t that cumbersome to manually apply two dots to each target anyway. At ~5 targets you’re still casting VE anyway, but you’re also casting SN which will apply SW:P, so misery becomes redundant after passing the cleave threshold.
Still feels good to me, rotationally, anyway. The problem in m+ is that SP needs like a 10% buff to its AoE. Having VE up on large pulls every ~1.5 min (but not every large pull) would accomplish this.
Quality of Life - Searing Nightmare
Would you prefer to:
A. Spam mind sear and cap on insanity
B. Interrupt mind sear to cast DP
C. Multi-dot 10+ targets with VE
D. Have no AoE because dots can’t be overly buffed due to ST
D. All of the above
Dots can’t be buffed because of AoE. Single target isn’t why dot damage is garbage.
There’s an easy workaround to this: simply have dots do less damage the more targets they are applied to. We already do this with aoe with soft and hard aoe caps.
Dots can be strong on both single and multi-target.
That sounds awful and super unfun to play around. There is no reason to convolute things. Just bring back AoE abilities that were pruned like cascade back.
That sounds awful and super unfun to play around.
Why would that be awful? I like having my dots do more (overall) damage. I’ll take my dots doing full damage on the first two mobs and progressively fall off at 3-5 and 5+, if it means my dots can, overall, do much more damage than they do right now.
You don’t have to play around it at all. Just dot 5 targets max and cast your filler/direct damage spells in-between.
This is what convoluted looks like. From the Warcraft Priests discord:
```
1-3 targets still DP
3 targets = Searing Nightmare outside of VF, but DP inside VF
4 targets+ = Searing Nightmare
If you have Shadowflame Prism and Bender is active
Drop Mind Blast at 6-7 targets
Drop Shadow Word: Death at 6-7 Targets
If you DO NOT have Shadowflame Prism
Never press Shadow Word: Death unless the target is <20% and its <4-5 mobs.
Drop MB at 4, unless its a DT procc, then u can always use it if u need the insanity or to proc your 4set
Drop VB at 4-5 without HV, and around 6 with HV.
When playing SFP you do not have enough globals to always VB at 5-6 targets, so u press it when u have a free global or if you need the insanity
If you weave in VBs, you go VB > sear > SN > SN > VB > Sear > SN > SN > VB etc. Delay VB 1 global is fine to get the double SN out.
VT: 4-5targets+ only VT outside of voidform, when u cant dump with SN, never cap insanity. Drop VT at around 7-8ish
```
Except this doesn’t fix anything lmao. Blizzard is not going to allow multidotting again get over it. They have done nothing but blanket nerf it over and over again.
This is like saying WW should deal less single taget damage because extra mobs exist. Trash!
The answer is simply to add direct damage as an option that isn’t a mess like searing nightmare.
Except this doesn’t fix anything lmao.
It absolutely does fix things. It allows our dots to be - and feel - stronger without being OP in multitarget.
They have done nothing but blanket nerf it over and over again.
Right, but that’s because they (1) had to deal with endless voidform stacks in the Legion-era of shadow (which no longer exists), or (2) didn’t implement the solution of a soft cap.
The answer is simply to add direct damage as an option that isn’t a mess like searing nightmare.
That’s one possible solution. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m saying that your solution isn’t the only one, and some people prefer their damage going more into dots than direct damage spells because they like the dot playstyle.
Legion shadow AoE was garbage and BFA AoE was hard carried by an azerite trait. They nerfed multidotting forever ago. Lets not pretend this is new.
This whole dots do less damage the more there are is by far the dumbest suggestion here. At that point just leave them the way they are.
Would not be shocked both Shadow and Affliction get reworked to be less dependent on dots going forward.
If dot damage is garbage then they can be buffed though. The only plausible reason they haven’t been buffed more is because they are also ST abilities. It’s just easier to buff an AoE spell when a spec needs more AoE, or a ST spell when a spec needs more ST. However, if the damage profile returned to one in which our primary source of AoE were dots, then the opposite effect would occur, in which you can no longer buff dots for ST because it would cause the spec to pull ahead in AoE.
I presume that the entire point of of SN was to escape that design condundrum. Personally, I like the spell–the animation, the sound effect, the way it fits into the rotation. I like the current complexity and iteration of spriest. It’s not clunky except during VF while Urh buff is active, simply because you have so many competing abilities you want to cast.
Legion shadow AoE was garbage and BFA AoE was hard carried by an azerite trait. They nerfed multidotting forever ago. Lets not pretend this is new.
It is new. There was no soft cap based on the number of dotted mobs in Legion or BFA. The azerite trait did not implement this kind of mechanic.
Until that time, Mage and Destro Lock are that way ------------>
The azerite trait actually made the damage relevant. Do you even play this game?
The azerite trait actually made the damage relevant.
I didn’t say it didn’t. I said it didn’t implement a soft/hard aoe cap.
Do you even play this game?
Yes and I realize that neither
“When Voidform ends, gain 15 Critical Strike, stacking 20 times. This effect decays every 1 sec.”
nor
Shadowy Apparitions deal an additional 270 damage to enemies suffering from your Vampiric Touch.
Are the same thing as a soft/hard aoe cap.