What are we now? I am confused I think the spec lacks identity becasue there is a mix of 3 concepts that doesn’t fit in my opinion. I want to main a spriest for TWW but what do you guys think of this new priest? with cosmic stuff?
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Cosmic is void in wow homie.
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We lack a clear theme, that’s why there are so many discussions about what our theme is/should be. That has manifested gameplay wise in our major changes in core play style which led to the build your own Priest situation we are in now.
We are Shadow, Void, now a little Cosmic; Black, Purple, now a little Blue. A support caster to a real dps. Psychic Vampire, Old God Follower. Dot class, option between dots and no dots, frantic blaster.
Our themes and the class fantasy people have about us vary so much that devs always make 2 groups mad for every group they make happy.
This is without even discussing how we are part of a class that also gives us the ability to call upon the Light to heal, shield, and support our allies. So we gotta make sure that all fits as well.
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I don’t see shadow priests not having a clear theme.
In fact spriest is probably the spec with the most identifiable theme from all the classes.
Shadow priests is basically a void caster. Void is part of the shadow cosmology.
Cosmic is not a school of magic. Idk where you guys are getting “Cosmic” as a thing.
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the void is one of the primordial forces that shaped the cosmos along with light, but since pure void energy cant manifest in the physical world, it manifest as shadow magic, an energy derived from the void.
you may ask why, well, it is common understand that void lords cant manifest in the physical world either, so it explains why pure void energy cant do it too, going by that logic.
recently, we have ‘‘cosmic damage’’ being a thing now, it is present in the voidweaver hero talent, my understanding is that its a powerful manifestation that represent more of the raw energy that shaped the cosmos; the void. maybe they did just to not have ‘‘void magic’’ so the explanation that void does not manifest itself would no longer make sense
it is always worth mentioning that priests are not just necessary light zealots or void/shadow cultists, they manipulate both powers and are more focused on seeking knowledge and using both primordial forces as a source of power. for example: even as a shadow you have light healing spells and shields, even as holy you have a shadow word: pain, death and mind control
“It is faith in ourselves that separates us from others, and with our powers, we will cause great change in all of Azeroth. The weak will come to lean on you. The lepers will call you Lord. And the ignorant will look to you for guidance.”
— Dark Cleric Duesten
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We apply Vampiric touch to generate insanity to cast a plague, and when we want to do more damage we sprout angel wings.
It might all be shadow damage, but thematically there’s no real throughline besides “It’s all shadow damage”.
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who sprouts angel wings? i sprout void tendrils.
And being a corrupted void angel is a theme.
We were once priests of the light and delved into the shadows that corrupted and changed us.
This thread and the many, many others like it is pretty good evidence of people seeing very different themes for Shadow priests.
Mages, just an example, have very clear themes both for the class as a whole and for their specs. Easier to design off of clear themes.
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We lost our identity a long time ago.
The second they added another form besides shadowform, the theme conflict began.
Voidform was a mistake. It undermines shadowform and makes it more pointless than it was left to be.
With the introduction of Dragonflight, Our identity is scattered. With their goal and intention to satisfy everyone, they created so many iterations leaving shadow as half-baked versions of all its past iterations.
Shadow, void, light, cosmic.
The themes themselves are all connected to what a priest is, but their poor execution of shadow is what creates this confusion.
3 Months to design classes is not enough and it’s disrespectful to the consumer. They have no time to properly think, plan, design, and form proper classes.
Everything is rushed and unthoughtful.
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Let’s keep it simple…
Look at the spec name within the game. Read it. That’s your answer.
I grow weary of this constant talk and push of void and now this cosmic language when those concepts severely go off the path into unknown realms that are unfamiliar with what Shadow has started out as and should remain true to its namesake.
Unless they pull a Combat rogue getting renamed to outlaw rogue, then Shadow should be focused around Shadow.
Stop adding more confusion into an already multi perceptional spec.
This is why the hero talents are nice to have as with Voidweaver, that is where all this void concepts should occupy and leave the base shadow concepts within Shadow spec proper.
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Shadow doesn’t mean anything though. It’s not mind priest, it’s not vampire priest, it’s not plague priest.
Shadow has never been true its namesake because its namesake is already inherently vague.
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So Paladins have a spec called Holy and Priests have a spec called Holy.
Does this logic apply to those specs? That they are vague and undefined?
No, because they had roots to build on that were present before WoW existed. Shadow did not.
Instead as a Shadow Priest player you filled the lack of much significant lore with your own idea of what a Shadow Priest was. In legion, blizzard decided to actually put lore in the game, but when players have had over 10 years to have their own ideas, it’s no surprise that it was extremely polarizing. And it continues to be.
Shadow is part of the void… not the void is part of the shadow
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Shadow priest defintely has different themes
There are shadow priest who practice dark/death magic.
There are void priest who use Void magic.
It all comes from void but you can use it for different types of shadow magic.
I prefer the more original style of shadow priest and that is still a thing in lore.
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Based on the Titan cosmology chart. Void is part of shadow.
The shadowlands chart shows Shadow = Void.
I don’t see what’s incoherent or weird here.
Vampiric touch is a shadow spell.
Insanity is part of void magic
Plague is shadow spell.
Angel wings? Dark ascension is just dark wings… Like… there are plenty of adds and void lords with dark wings. Still a shadow transformation.
It’s literally all shadow spells…
The only difference is that since Legion blizzard has pushed shadow priests more towards Void and Old gods which is still part of the shadow school of magic, doesn’t really break the theme of the spec.
You could say you don’t like Old god theme, but there’s a difference between not liking it and being confusing.
??? The arguments some people, which are very few, that are writing here are very poor.
I still don’t get what’s confusing of a Shadow caster using Shadow and Void spells…
Shadow dots, Shadow direct dmg spells, Shadow defensives, Shadow cc…
The thematics of the spells goes around inflicting plagues and diseases, affecting the mind by controlling it or damage it or applying fear to it and then you have heavy shadow spells like void torrent.
It’s literally all about void and shadow.
I think the thing to understand here is that although some people (you for example) feel that all those things you mentioned are cohesive in theme, there are clearly some who do not.
You can disagree with them, you can how do you not get it, etc, but that does not change that in their opinion these things do not feel like a cohesive theme.
For example, I (and many others) do not feel it is cohesive and/or do not like that we use both shadow and light based spells. Obviously there are others that are totally fine with that. Neither is right or wrong, it’s just different people with different class fantasies, opinions, etc.
I do believe Priest and Shadow specifically has one of if not the most disagreement on the class fantasy and themes, and I believe that leads in part to design issues.
I mean… you could have an opinion like “I don’t like this theme” and that’s ok and valid, but stating that “This theme is not cohesive” It is an opinion nonetheless but when the arguments are not really that solid then your opinion is just wrong…
This has been a thing for Warcraft like… ever. You are shadow, but you’re a Priest and like it or not it is cohesive for the class to use both Light and Shadow spells.
You are a Fire mage, but you still use Frost and Arcane spells.
In fact, not being able to use Light spells as a priest, regardless of the spec, would be not being cohesive as for wacraft’s gameplay and lore.
There’s a difference between “I don’t like this because I don’t like using light spells being a shadow priest” and “I think the design of the spec is not cohesive and has core design principle issues”.
The spec has no incoherent design from a theme perspective and it has a strong identity in warcraft.
Well my opinion can only be wrong if there is something objectively true. So you may feel the reasons for my opinion are weak, however I disagree. That’s how these things work, you have evidence, reasons, rationale, etc and they will be agreed upon and disagreed upon more or less by different people.
I do not believe that it being that way since WoW began is a good reason. It is very common in WoW and fantasy story telling as a whole to change old things if they don’t seem to fit anymore. Retcons, new information, different perspective, etc. For example, about the book that first gave us the cosmology chart, it was later said that was the Titan perspective. That’s one of many examples that I’m sure you yourself even could come up with.
We see devs often talk about “does this fulfill X class/specs fantasy.” They could say “well it’s our lore, so you have to accept whatever fantasy we come up with. If we say barbarians are peaceful martial artists, then that’s just what they are in our world and we don’t care about your opinion otherwise.”
So, it is perfectly reasonable for me to say that having one class draw upon power from two opposing sides of the cosmology chart isn’t cohesive. I can absolutely make arguments for why it could be, because this is all fantasy, but that wouldn’t change that for me it isn’t.
Meh shadow used to be cool before they added all the void crap. The spec used to be really fun. Now it’s meh. I dropped it like a hot rock with the latest rework.
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