MoP demo warlock. (Didn’t play it in WoD but I can only assume it remained fairly similar)
My current alt, 8.3 geared balance druid. (VOP Major, Pulsar, Empowerment system)
WoD AS Shadow Priest: (Not COP. Making that very clear)
I don’t really play much outside of shadow, but the times I’ve dabbled in other specs I have found roughly what I felt was missing. Also worth noting that going back further than MoP is adding a whole slew of overall game systems (Snapshotting, removal of Pandemic, Hybrid Tax, much less movement focused boss mechanics, mana removing the need to always have a movement rotation) that are simply gone and never coming back.
The way I’ve described it in the past is a spec needs to have the capacity to make meaningful choices, and therefor meaningful mistakes. While it is possible to play shadow badly, that’s not through failing to make the correct choice, it’s often through failing to make any choice at all. Shadow’s rotation is one on rails.
For me, the reasons for that are largely due to the changes in shadow over the period from Legion to now. It started out that the way to make choices and play better or worse was in proper usage of StM (But that was bad because the risk was too great, leaving it a huge barrier of entry) and using different techniques to extend the duration of voidform for longer periods of time.
But they started cutting that out. They removed the ability to build stacks during dispersion, preventing it from being as meaningful for extending voidform. They cut down on the increases to insanity gains. And now the duration of void form is basically out of the control of the player. It essentially has a hard cut off, and the only way to extend past that is by hoping for good RNG triggers for insanity refunds.
That’s what has been taken away for me. The ability to extend voidform for longer periods through choices and gameplay. Which from my perspective has always been the entire point of voidform. When they basically had to make it so there was a hard cutoff to prevent you from going too high, it made the margin of error for the priest incredibly small.
I can’t say I played either of those classes. So you’d have to elaborate on what those classes do in their rotation, why you feel that makes it meaningful, and how that could be applied to shadow.
Also I am not a fan of COP, no thank you. But my WOD experience from my memory was that of a very basic use on cooldown rotation, with a few procs (these did have the RNG Mind Spike proc in MOP yes?)
Second! There really isn’t one thing I like about it, honestly. It just doesn’t make much sense to me. The whole Shadow Priest idea was based on a balance of Shadow and Light. Needing to know the Light before you could know the Shadow. So that balance is gone now? We just live in the Shadow all the time? Doesn’t feel like a Priest anymore. Feel like one of those NPC’s I am killing on the boat in Stormsong Valley. You know, the ones on the ship waving their arms all squid like. More like a lost Occultist.
Leads me to my next issue, how are tentacles associated with Priests? My understanding of the tentacles was Old Gods related. Not just Void or Shadow. The squid NPC’s get them because of Old God influence. So Void Form means you are losing to the Old Gods? Not harnessing the Void Powers? Comparison would be, why don’t Holy/Disc Priests turn into geometric shapes? I mean that would be the equivalent to what Shadow has become for Holy/Disc. You get driven more good(?) to the point where you start looking like a Naaru? Also, Void Elves are a thing. Infused enough by the void to change their appearance…no tentacles. No tentacles in their armor features either…
Mechanically I don’t need to express my issues. They have been expressed a lot already by others. Shadow was my main from BC to Legion. The rework caused me to shelve Shadow. I’ve tried to come back and ignore the issues I have aesthetically and the Lore I don’t understand. But mechanically I just can’t. I can’t build my way into VF in fights (PVP/PVE) and have something simple ruin all my damage. I can’t always ask a group to pull dangerously large amounts just to feel like I am keeping up with other DPS. I don’t understand why the best PVP action was to NOT enter VF…the thing our spec is now based on (I know this isn’t the case now but it was at one point and that’s an issue).
Feels like a new class was being designed, they ran out of time or couldn’t get it to fit properly, so they just shoved half the ideas to Shadow and called it a day.
TL;DR - Don’t like Tentacles. Don’t like Lore change. Don’t like band-aid borrowed power to fix a spec. Don’t like feeling similar to lame NPC’s. Don’t like laziness…Also…never liked Shadowfiend.
I mean, that’s fine that you don’t like it. But maybe the class isn’t for you? It’s not really a lore change at all. I’ve always felt that shadow was related to the old gods (we got a shafiend in mists before we had legion tie it more directly).
I’m the opposite of you. I played from vanilla to Legion and Legion revitalized the shadow priest for me, made me come back, and I fell in love with the class all over again. I actively wanted to play retail for the first time again when Legion came out because of the changes to shadow.
Your honestly saying you thought Shadow Priest had connections to Old Gods back in Vanilla?
Call me crazy but I don’t buy it.
Only connection I can see is back in AQ where you has bosses and mobs use mind flay type abilities that feared you and whatnot. That’s about it.
Old God influence on our spec has crept in slowly overtime sure I’ll grant you that. But I think that was a cause of mistaken identity.
Take the current talent “San’Layn” (and still showing up in SL Alpha) It is about Vampirism, combined with our Vampiric Touch, Vampiric Embrace etc.
I mean our primary castable dot is still named “Vampiric Touch”. I don’t see it renamed to “Touch of the Tentacle God” lol.
If anything, since the old gods are taking a back seat in SL then just embrace change again and go all Vampire mode since we literally got Vampires as a faction part of SL.
Lets go all Michael Morbius up in here lol.
Point is, Shadow has never found its solid footing in terms of identity.
Is it Dot or Burst? Warlock or Death Knight? Void or Shadow? Old God or Vampire?
If we don’t know what we are then fine, at least make the spec work in more then 1 type of content. Which is what they did until legion.
Also, for the COP (Clarity of Power) issue. What exactly is wrong with it? I found it a great play style in Raids, PvP, 5 man, solo, Ashran. I topped meters and it was fun and engaging as long as you do it right. Upon reading the description it sounds like its just for single target purposes but I can assure you that was not the case. You throw out your dots and once you get instant cast procs for Mind Spike then you start planning your burst with a mixture of dot weaving with DP and dotless instant cast bursts with x2 Mind Spikes, Mind Blast, x2 SW:D etc.
It was a ton of fun.
If you didn’t like that playstyle then fine, get some crit and go Auspicious Spirits and go dot crazy.
The reason why Shadow Orbs worked so well is that it opened up options to playing the spec, was a fun mechanic and simply worked.
That is why people want it back
I tend to throw more weight at a spec that has proved it can work at a base level (Pre Legion Shadow) vs a Spec that falls on itself without borrowed powers.
Maybe your the one that needs to reconsider what shadow is and what its supposed to be.
Nearly all shadow priest based enemies were tied to some kind of “old god”. While not being as specific as it was, you had priests of Hakkar using mind flay. You had minions of the old gods using mind flay. The Twilight cultists would sometimes use it. And necromancers would use it.
It was always tied pretty heavily with the idea that the shadow priest’s power comes from dark forces. Following a path of darkness and gaining power for it. Up until AQ we didn’t know that old gods existed, so sure. I didn’t always know in legion. But I sure felt a connection after more old gods lore was added in the game.
And you haven’t demonstrated that shadow orbs was good or better, just that you liked it more. So why does you opinion hold more weight than mine? It DOESN’T.
Not a SINGLE one of you is willing to actually address the situations with Shadow. Most of you refuse to post on your priests in the priest forums, and so far have given zero suggestions to fix shadow. And all you can say is you liked a different version better. If you can’t be bothered to work out the issues with shadow and give suggestions, then there’s no point in you having a conversation about it.
And so far I seem to be one of only two 120 shadow priests posting here. Come back when you actually put some time in the class.
So the idea of choice and flexibility with Shadow Orbs does not make it better?
I’m sorry, but being locked in with talents regarding the Insanity Mechanic is uninspiring. You have the choice to play like all the other priests and still struggle to be competitive and frustrated or you just pick talents that lead to a totally broken spec.
That in of itself makes Shadow Orbs better.
With Shadow Orbs, you can mix and match talents and get multiple different builds to work (as I indicated).
In addition, you can add on to how Shadow Orbs interact with spells. Its a solid foundation that can be built upon.
Insanity is just a sluggish mess that only pulls everything down that interacts with it at a fundamental level, it doesn’t fit how the game is designed / played around.
Insanity is not a fun Mechanic, that is a oozing mess of a failed experiment.
Because if your argument is the class isn’t fun and you don’t have viability, if you don’t play the class it takes away from the point. And I see little raid and no M+ activity.
As you have pointed out yourself. Many different groups used shadow magic that would be more relatable to Shadow vs Affliction from a Warlock throughout the game. But they are NOT all connected to the old gods.
The idea of Shadow magic is not solely tied to Old Gods. The game itself mentions this (I think the knife tells you herself in Legion?).
Old Gods just happen to use / tap into that source of magic and “Corrupt” it with its own flavor.
I am exactly in a position to say that. Even with my content in the last two days I have more content seen. And logging and recorded performance doesn’t agree with you. Shadow has been more than viable for a while.
you played only 3 raids on LFR ( didn’t even finish 2 of them) and 1 m+2 dung this season. No you are not in a position to discuss profiles and silence others.
you know its funny because you claimed that i was trying to silence you and now you are trying to silence others. also here is where you claim to be morally superior. “you know better because you and only you have played shadow extensively this season (sarcasm)”
we get it you love voidform. We don’t. Stop shoving it down our throat. thank you
Would you look at that, your build is exactly the same as all the other Shadow priests builds. Shocking.
Your build proves my point, there is no choice and that’s the problem. Because at its fundamental level Shadow with the Insanity Mechanic is either Over powered because it scales out of control or its broken because it cant scale to the point it needs to in order to be competitive before it teeters out.
Add on to that with just how slow it is when engaging random mobs while leveling and doing solo content. It doesn’t give you the rewarding feel when you do something right, it just gives you the relief that you are not complete trash at a best case scenario.
So having said that, your either at one end of the extreme or the other with Insanity. That is why it cant be balanced because it cant find a middle BALANCE between the 2 extremes.
Yes, you’ll have to scroll a bit farther back to see it. It’s not an accident that I didn’t do much with shadow in Legion or BFA. It’s a combination of having played Legion beta and having much less play time nowadays to spend any of it playing a spec I don’t enjoy. I have spent more than enough time over the years playing shadow in various iterations to be able to say whether it’s fun or not.
The moment I got on Legion beta to try out this new Insanity Mechanic, I was like… Eeeew oh my god this is gross.
So I tried the new Demon Hunter class and had so much fun compared to Insanity Shadow Priest that I was just convinced that shadow was going to be crap.
Having spending over a decade playing Shadow in every type of content varying from PvP & PvE, I instantly felt disgusted when just trying to kill some mobs in Legion Beta and on Legion live. It was awful. The utter lack of control you get is what really pushed me away.
I love that this entire time I’ve said that the issue with shadow is that all the baseline parts of voidform were made into talents and that we need to change that.
I’m done with people not reading my posts and then making absurd claims. If you’re too much of a troll to stick with the convo don’t bother jumping into it.