I just wanted to share what I like about Shadow Priest and would like to hear what other people who play it like. A little distraction while we wait for developer feedback. (Probably won’t come until after soulbinds hit the Alpha/Beta)
Thematically I like the Psychic nature of the class and I like how it, at least lore-wise, deals with deep-psyche elements. I just wish how the Void and these elements interact in lore would be better represented in the kit.
On the game-play end I like how the Apparitions make me feel almost like an army of one. I like the moments when I have a lot of effects on screen between Apparitions and when I cast Void Eruption although this doesn’t happen regularly due to how the kit works. I like the channeled abilities but I want them to have more interaction with the rest of our toolkit. All three of them generate insanity although only one of them does it well but it has a CD and is on a talent row with a must-have talent. Mind Flay is the most iconic ability when it comes to our class’s theme to the point you can find it in other games, but it doesn’t do anything. No chance to proc anything and nothing to act as a effect to raise it higher on our cast priority list.
Didn’t really mean to go negative but the class feels a little up-in-the-air at the moment as to where it will go game-play wise and how that could effect it thematically.
Great points. Big reason I don’t like warlocks is because of pets. You would think our DoTs would be stronger because we don’t have any burst CDs but ah well.
Nothing made more sense to me then leveling this void elf Spriest. I find the class to be a lot fun in all aspects of the game. I’m not pushing high in raiding or pvp but the whole theme of class appeals to me
I like it’s damage profile. Once it ramps up, the damage is pretty consistent in a boss fight. No managing burst windows or boring CDs, just focus on your sanity, keep your GCDs tight, and you’ll do great damage.
I also like that our main filler is channeled. I hate bolt casters with a passion. Nothing feels worse than casting an already weak filler, having to move at the last second, and wasting all that cast time to not even do any damage.
I also love the animations. Levitating in combat is the coolest thing in my opinion. I don’t care what type of caster they are, if my enemy can’t levitate like me, they’re a peasant in terms of magical prowess. Only the truly powerful can waste power on levitating while killing you.
I also really like getting lots of mobs dotted and seeing hundreds of Auspicious Spirits floating around. Hivemind in Ny’alotha is my favorite fight for this reason
I also like the void theme. I know a lot of people don’t, but I like the idea that we’re channeling powers most are too afraid to even touch, and we’re constantly pushing ourselves to go further into the void, but not so far we lose control. It’s a very fun theme
Shadow is my favorite spec hands down. Nothing else compares
What i like about the Spriest is that it is my main since i started to play wow… but sadly is the worst dps class on the game right now… hope they fix the class by removing ramp up mechanic or we will be the worst dps for doing torghast in shadowlands.
Good mix of dots and abilities that deal direct damage.
Lack of powerful major cooldown means no feast or famine playstyle, though I wouldn’t mind something to subvert our initial ramp up which has become a whopping 65 seconds.
Doesn’t apply so much now, but I like that we’ve always been based around consistent sustained damage across whole encounters. Ramp =/= sustain but with enough overlapping escalations and de-escalations it starts to look like it.
I like the feedback we get on our performance. While I’m not a fan of voidform mechanically, I’ve got to say having a tangible goal to push for, reach, and even exceed without the need for add-ons like DPS meters is something I wish more specs had.
What if they make a talent (or baseline/legendary effect) that makes SW:P have a chance to increase the damage of your next Mind Flay by 20% and make your damage over time effects damage twice as fast for the duration of the cast?
Not a fix but would I think it would increase engagement during gameplay.
Unlikely it would, honestly. For a proc to feel meaningful or rotationally relevant it has to adjust the spell priority of the player. Play is currently on the bottom rung of the priority ladder, and this proc doesn’t move it up that ladder. The same issue with SI, proc mind blast has the exact same priority as mind blast. The order you’re pressing the buttons in might have some variations, but the rules governing that order never change.
Something that did disrupt that order was the initial 8.1 PTR version of thought harvester (300% damage increase). It moved sear into the single target rotation with a proc that had the impact and space to justify being played around.
What I used to love about Shadow priest was having some hard hitting moves "Mind Blast, Mind Spike, Devouring Plague" and dots that HURT.
Sadly I don’t play my priest much these days because DoTs tickle, pvp isn’t fun because melee just run over you without a chance. My personal shield feels super weak, and self heals are meh. I’m not asking to be a GOD in pvp, just relevant.
But, what I like about priest is a petless DoT spec, as the below post states, in a way.
Shadows dots dont really hurt now, but its mostly because bliz (Intentionally or otherwise) gave us the ability to make our ghosts hit like trucks. My apparitions are doing 24k each in pve now (17k ish previously with 2SA)
The scaling on death throes has let shadow word pain sorta keep up in PVP, but ye it’s not really where it has been in the past.
I bothers me a bit that in battlegrounds, if I get a Vamp touch and shadow word pain on someone as they are riding by, their hp will never drop below like 97% if they just keep riding.
Yep I completely agree! It’s made dot classes feel insignificant and clearly it shows by their representation in rated PvP. I don’t even remember the last time I saw an affliction warlock or shadow priest in M+ TBH, not that I do a ton, but still…