Is it though?
WoD Shadow works in the entire game just fine up to the end of WoD.
The only “changes” that have to address are Legion and BFA’s.
Legion:
- Artifact system is dead, it doesn’t give you any mechanical alterations / changes so it wont affect anything.
- Mage Tower - Arguably would be easier with WoD mechanics but that doesn’t matter because its gone from the game.
- Tier set bonuses - Just deactivate them like all the other previous tier set bonuses, they did it before, can do again.
BFA:
- Corruptions - Going away when Pre-patch hits so it has 0 effect.
- Essences - Maybe you have some argument here but again, these are typical that affect all classes. So I think it will translate just fine for WoD mechanics. But they will no longer work once you get into SL content anyway.
- Azerite Gear - This might need some changes, but honestly, I don’t think its a big deal. Just change all the spec specific abilities that has no connection to WoD mechanics and either alter a bit or deactivate them. Its a small price to pay.
Shadow Lands:
- This is the only concern. But if they actually “fixed” the spec from the beginning by going the route of WoD then this would have 0 impact.
I would like an example of something that is actually challenging to make the swap back to WoD mechanics for Shadow.