I would say my main complaint with this is:
- Holy talent tree is using a Paladin in the art rather than a Priest
I feel really disappointed that the only ability that priests got to keep from shadowlands is mind games, something that I didnāt really find that fun or useful as a holy priest. Is that really the only ability we get to take away from this expansion?
Iām also really disappointed not to see Xanshi on the talent tree. Maybe that is just me, but it would be nice to give holy a bit of utility there.
At least I will still get to troll people by rezzing them over holesā¦
Now, while itās certainly possible to build this way, Iāll ask you this: How many players actually would build this way? Like, outside of someone doing it intentionally to make a post like yours, do you think that any priest who specs shadow is going to ignore two active abilities that are literally at the top of the tree for any other reason than to intentionally avoid them?
1 Like
Thanks! The explanation for Idol of YāShaarj is now clearer.
I hope they clarify Idol of NāZoth as well.
Yāshaarj post from the CC forums for anyone wondering.
THIS is some good stuff right here, pending tuning. This is cool, this is thematic, and there are many, many ways you can use this talent intelligently for all sorts of crazy effects as it can meaningfully change your gameplay from situation to situation. THIS is what a 10th-Row talent should look like, especially when compared to the absolute joke that is Void Apparitions.
2 Likes
Thank you. Per Wowhead for 8.3->Echoing Void: Your damaging abilities build the Echoing Void. Each time it builds, Echoing Void has a chance to collapse, dealing 1.00% of your Health as Shadow damage to all nearby enemies every 1 sec until no stacks remain.
Echoing Void
Just curious if this is a nudge to push shadow priests in melee like survival hunters?
I think this could be fixed by adding a requirement for the top 4 abilities be selected prior to exploring the rest of the tree. Removes some choice but honestly, thereās no world where a Shadow Priest should be able to avoid Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague.
They just put out a blue post about this, but basically the Idol of YāShaarj has different effects based on the following:
- Above 80% health = Pride: You and your Shadowfiend deal increased damage while Shadowfiend is active.
- Enraged = Anger: Purges the enraged effect and increases your Haste while Shadowfiend is active.
- Stunned = Despair: You generate Insanity while Shadowfiend is active.
- Feared = Fear: You and your Shadowfiend deal increased damage and do not break fear effects while Shadowfiend is active.
Otherwise if none of those conditions are met you get Violence which increases the duration of your Shadowfiend. They also said that thereās a priority order of Anger/Despair/Fear > Pride > Violence. So if your target is above 80% health, but theyāre enraged, youāll get the Anger buff over the Pride buff.
All of this is subject to change, so once the 10.0 PTR launches or you get into alpha/beta when that launches, jump in and give them feedback on it.
1 Like
Looks interesting hope it works out in the world.
Not for nothing, but you missed that others already answered them and that they saw those replies. 
Blizz, stop trying to make Lightwell happen. Itās not gonna happen.
2 Likes
Coming from a person who has only ever played a priest as a 3rd of 4th character, I bow to the folks in here that want to main this class, they deserve to be happy. I play Disc, (its why I like the class) and shadow to world quest. Holy has always been fascinating to me, but as a serial altaholic I donāt feel confident enough to play it given how little time I spend in that spec.
Anyway, here are my thoughts in no particular order, and of interest to probably no one. You will notice my focus is more on flavor and feel and less on the overall power level.
Class Tree
- Feels weird to have both Prayer of Mending and Renew move to the class tree. As a Disc main, I am not sure what to think, but it sure seems like we would be casting prayer of mending? Renew looks avoidable, but the 10% healing buff seems like it might be seen as too good to give upā¦ Thatās a lot of maintenance before spinning up the atonement damage-to-healing gameplay loop.
- What is going on with Shadow Mend? It doesnāt state it replaces flash heal here, I expect it does, but I have always been unclear on the value of this spell outside of flavor. It does a little more healing but eats that bonus healing later. Its probably skipped by Holyā¦ But like, why is it even in the game anymore, honestly? I am actually VERY pro-replacement spells, helps keep the deck clear. However Shadow Mend needs to be used for more than this. If it is highly important to have a shadow based heal, its highly important to do it justice.
- Very happy to see the Body and Soul or Feather choice, was a little worried they would jam a 3rd choice on that node (not sure if they CAN) but in the current talent trees the movement choice for the three specs always felt very ugly given they all had a third non-movement ability jammed in there.
- Power Infusion seems way to controversial to leave alone. Putting it right in a crossroad link like this just calls attention to it. Blizz, you need to really draw up about 3 core class changes for each class you are going to consider, and it seems to be PI needs to be one of those. How about a self only PI that gives 4 other targets a lesser version? Not sure how you pick those targets, do something smart and innovativeā¦ Or come up with a better idea.
- The Shadowfiend to Shadowflame Prism trunk is real interesting to me. I think its a hit, but I suspect shadow players are going to have some feelings about it being in the class tree?
- Holy Nova needs the numbers to support it, given its prominence in the treeā¦ Or it needs to be put on a branch.
- Mind Control branch is very interesting. Its placement is non-obviously a branch, but it is very skippable. There for folks who will want it, but are there enough points for this many branches? Are you asking players to make interesting choices with those precious points. Leap, Clear Mind, Shackle, Tools of the Cloth, Improved Novaā¦ Some of these are more about throughput. I think your data will find the players will self-prune Mind Control and Shackle. (But lets be honest, you have been as clear as you possibly can be that CC has no place in your game.)
- Core capstone trunks are fine, they do have a Holy > balanced > Shadow feel to them, and I donāt think you are giving up a lot to get that feel. Shadow priests are playing with the void, risking their souls, Holy is diametrically opposed to the void, and Disc is using the power of both sides to advantage (a flavor win given their DPS to heal mechanics) Feels like you are headed to a world where the Holy side of that is getting undercut by the addition of baseline Mind Blast. (Or is Chastise a Mind Blast replacer? I honestly forgetā¦ And if it is, do Mind Blast effecting talents work?)
- Really really hoping you re-color the spell effects on Mindgames (and all the other covenant abilities we are bringing forward.) I think its an interesting and worthwhile narrative that over time the heroes of Azeroth learn new powers from their adventures. It happened in Legion to BFA as well. But the big difference with covenant powers is their theming was very much covenant specific. Thatās fine as a big neon sign saying you picked this covenant during shadowlands. But now that we left, it seems strange to me that priests will be summoning blood laced anima when NONE of their other spells are themed this way. Mindgames is no longer a gift of the Venthyr, it is now something priests have learned to replicate, we need to see that transformation in the spell art. (Also would love a re-color of the icon too.)
Discipline
- Blizzā¦ Why did you give us the priest trees with Purify in the tree like that with a big note? This is why you get people saying you arenāt taking us seriously. I get that at some point the design changed, and you moved cleanse from talents to baseline for the healers (the right choice, IMO.) But there are 9 other classes you could have shownā¦ Unless they are in a worse state? Which is exactly what people are asking themselves right now, āOMG, is Dragonland going to be a disaster? they donāt even have the class talent trees ready for anyone but three classes?!?ā
- Inner Light and Shadow is cool, love to see interesting PvP talents brought overā¦ Butā¦ With the prayer of mending/renew question aboveā¦ I am pretty worried about maintenance overload hereā¦ I guess in this case its a stance that we shift down to power conservation mode when the fight runs long, rather than going back and forthā¦ This # of buttons question is more acute for Shadow, but they got bigger problems (see below.)
- Counterpoint, good call on power word Solace/Shield Discipline, giving folks the option of opting out of a new button is good.
- Shining Radiance should be the Ultimate Radiance PvP talent. Instant PW Radiance in PvE would be fun! Maybe as another 1 point talent directly below shining radiance and in the 8 point cap.
- Isnāt Schism unskippable already? (I guess that IS relative to the other talents in that tier butā¦) Feels pretty core to modern Disc, and its instead in a weird optional branchā¦ I am not sure thatās the right call?
- Probably a weird place to put this, as I am sure there are going to be other examples, butā¦ Power of the Dark Side into Dark Indulgences feels odd. Thing into a non-optional improvement of that thing with no additional flair is a missed opportunity.
- CDR talent for Pain Suppression is fun. Where did that come from?
- Shining Force/Psychic Voice/Mind Bomb, Blizz, these talents need to be treated the same in all three trees, and be in the same place. I donāt mind the Mind Bomb is a shadow version of Shining Force thingā¦ But it feels like you are confused on the value of these talents. Here is what I suggestā¦ Put Psychic voice in the talent tree somewhere central on a branch, and directly below it put the Shining Force/Mind Bomb choice on a branch. These CC options can be optional and in ready reach for PvPers, while skippable for throughput oriented PvEers. Also gives some cool new options to Holy and Disc relative to a choice between two similar feeling abilities. If this is a flavor call āHoly get holy thing, Shadow get shadow thing, Disc can get both,ā Pick something more meaningful, you are trying to be too clever here, I think.
- Shadow Covenant branch feels cool. with numbers supporting the right range there, it could be a fun alternate playstyle? Or maybe this is the thing that puts Schism in an optional placeā¦ Making a good alternate, go Shadow Covenant Build or Schism build? Not sold, just a thought.
- Option to have Spirit Shell AND Rapture? That feels weirdā¦ For players who donāt want two 1.5m cooldowns, they have to give up Harsh Discipline, which looks fun. Its clear you donāt want Disc to have three such buttons, but this seems strangeā¦ Speaking ofā¦
- Evangelism in a world with Indemnity and Solatiumā¦ I guess these are raid tools to keep the heals flowingā¦ Not sure how I feel about so many talents focused on Atonement duration, I guess. Should Indemnity and Solatium be merged? I think maybe so, given they are capstones. Or even better, merge all three, making the Indemnity and Solatium passive bonuses attached to Evangelism, giving a (likely raider) a fun Atonement extension playstyleā¦ Or even CRAZIERā¦ Make either Idemnity or Solatium on relative to whether Evangelism is on or off cooldown. Not sure which way should be which, but that would be cool.
- Wickedness seems cool! Never seen that before, not sure where it came from or if new.
Shadow
Oh, boyā¦ I think you really need to go back to the drawing board here. Shadow has been suffering from a lack of vision for some time. There is a wealth of history of reworks for this class, but honestly, taking the Mind Blast proc out of Mind Flay feels like the last card in this card house that was holding it up in its current vision. Now you are in crossroads of at least 3 solid visions for the class. There may be others that are even better.
- āShadow is the class of Channeling spellsā This is honestly what I think it should be, there is not a lot that feels mechanically different about this class other than channeling. How do you get there? Mind Sear modifies Mind Flay, giving incidental AOE (would be an unusual quirk for a ranged DPS classā¦ Which is actually nice.) Make Void Torrent baseline or a version of Mind Flay that is cast during Void Form (with numbers changes.) Mind Blast becomes cartable while channeling, probably with a longer cooldown and a CDR reduction (not refresh) associated with the dots. Shadow Crash becomes a talent that procs Shadow Crashes when you channel on multiple targets? Not sureā¦ ground targeting is fun, so maybe long cooldown with CDR for each time you channel damage on targets with SWP, this would be rewarding for properly maintaining dots on many targetsā¦ Either way, once you make the choice that this is the channeling caster, you need to hook in the cool moments to that mechanic. BUT, this will only work if you a) extend the duration of Mind Sear, so we dont have to refresh quite as often, AND b) allow us to move while channelingā¦ Maybe we are snared. Give us the cool void form floating effect while this is happening. (As an aside, you should rename your channeling spells to Whispers of XYZ, giving a nod to the Words meme within the class and also paying off the Void flavor of the class.)
- āShadow is the class of Void Formā Return to us the void form maintenance minigame, spending insanity extending duration. This was a unique element of the class when it existedā¦ A class with a weaker cooldown that could last a lot longer when played well. Or give CDR ala Holy Wordsā¦ Dark Words. Which would potentially avoid some of the skill floor issues with the duration extension version. Could also hook in other CDs to the Dark Words element, giving the Holy and Shadow priest an interesting similarity that helps highlight their differences.
- āShadow is the class of Apparitionsā With this version, you double down on the Apparition procs, Giving us more and more interesting ways to create them. There is definitely a feel good moment in here where Shadow priests suddenly release an army of spooky ghosts, it LOOKS cool and feels coolā¦ Probably need a way to benefit from them not landing thoā¦ If the target is dead before they arrive, minor Heals for the group?
I know this is not going to be a expansion where we are going to see reworks, but at this point you clearly see there is a problem with Shadowā¦ I just think you see a small problem where I believe there is a more fundamental one.
Closing
I really donāt know enough about holy to comment there. It seems interesting to me that only Mindgames survived from Shadowlandsā¦ Its location in the class tree is an interesting choice, a choice that makes the inclusion of the Convoke and Adaptive Swarm powers in all three spec trees for the Druid the exception? Its even more clear now though that you have chosen to keep the cross-spec nature of these covenant powersā¦ I am not sure thatās a good call. Surely there are some covenant powers that some specs want but others within the same class donāt? Either way I can see you are stuck here with the idea that these powers belong to all specs within the class. Iām not sure thatās a good stance, but I guess we will seeā¦ At least they are all theoretically an option among a 3 or 4 others.
Talents are excellent, and this implementation is great, its the devil in the details that will get you. I hope your development pipeline allows for you to make changes to these trees during the expansion, rather than just tuning numbers as you have been for a long time. If you could do a swap here and there, or change some links, or even axe a talent and replace during a major patch, you will have a LOT of good options, and a player base that I think would find it preferable to being stuck with the same issue, papered over with numbers, for 2 years.
Hope we see more of these more quickly.
2 Likes
While that write up about the philosophy of all this is very good, the class talent tree does ultimately make me feel uneasy. Because having to choose means you are inevitably missing out on some things. Iām not saying it wonāt work or anything like that. Iām sure a hell of a lot of time has gone into this. It still just makes me uneasy at this stage.
Still at the end of the day, Iām sure Iāll settle into one or two builds I like, and just not think about it.
OMG. all i gotta say is that shadow team must start from scratch with the spec. Like, from ZERO. Give us a cast filler, not a channeled one, just to start. The last talents look promising, but everything that comes before is so damn messy.
2 Likes
Power Infusion is fine as is. It does not need to be made self-cast only or removed.
2 Likes
Looks interesting now if we can have the mage and warlock talent trees please :0)
question is how long does your current shadow fiend last sorry I havenāt tried shadow priest yet.
Holy Priest player, do not like Disc or Shadow.
While Iām not a fan of these trees in general, itāllā¦function I guess. Iād rather jus keep the trees as they are and jus see more balance. Thereās not really choices here to make, maybe on a fight where youāre NEVER using PoH you dump that, but then you donāt get spirit, or cosmic ripple, or even get to go down the left endā¦whatever. I played around with wowheads thing as I think just by default, base tree will be 27/31 and 26/30 (give or take a couple points, like maybe binding heal ends up being bad or something) then a couple points to play with.
But itās all āpassiveā bonuses anyway. The only āactiveā stuff is just being forced to talent into basic class abilities. Hymm being so far down the left side that you are forced to take PoH is a mess. Thereās also a TON of mana return on the trees, if you mix in Shadowfiend and everything to the mix, that Iām curious if flash heal is gonna cast 10% of your total maximum mana at this point.
Mana management as a healer has ALWAYS been my favorite part of healing in early progression, but by choice of casting which spells when, or NOT casting for a few moments, etc. Having to juggle 8 different mana returns constantly just takes away from that.
Anyway, from the perspective of the talents / base abilities themselves. PI is enough said. Please no more. PW: Fort. Same thing. Or give it to other classes. Continuing to force āyou must have a priest, monk, DH, warriorā¦ā when the plan of getting rid of that stuff was to stop that to begin with. The biggest thing I have feedback on is Holy Word: Life.
Likeā¦ maybe this will be useful in 5-mans? Itāll be completely 100% useless in a raid environment where you have multiple other healers in the fight. How often does someone sit below 20% for more than a global at best? Almost never. And then you go to cast, get sniped, all of a sudden now youāve taken 40k damage, or whatever the numbers are. Even in 5-mans I see this being likely a fair chunk of the time ā Most tanks will heal themselves, so you might get a shot at healing a DPS with it, but even then thereās enough self-healing going around that if a DPS drops that low, generally theyāre gonna be actively trying to heal themselves. Round and round in circles we go.
Then, either way, as Iām sure many people will (and many wonāt), Iād have to completely rework my raid/party frames to track peopleās percent health, which personally I hate, I work in absolute numbers when I heal. Lots of problems I can see with that spell just not being useful at all. Yes, you can just not take it. But even outside of I donāt like it personally, just not something I see being overtly useful, and will do more harm then good. Maybe if it was like a āfutureā heal you put on someone? Duration 30 seconds, cooldown 30 seconds? āNext this this target would drop below 20%, heals blahblahā¦if it expires without healing, you take 20% of your maximum life blahblahā¦?ā I could see that being fun to play around and a useful spell to have.
Anyway, just my 3 cents as a long term Holy Priest fan.
3 Likes
Unsure (I think itās 18 seconds?) but Bender is 15 seconds plus 1 second per time you proc Shadowflame Prism (which you will take on the Priest class tree, 100%), which realistically amounts to 26-27 seconds in most cases.
PI still not self-cast only sadge.
1 Like