Is Shadow Priest supposed to be this miserable?

[Dawnrage]

I think shadow has a decent rotation in voidform, and pretty bad rotation outside of it. I won't say it's miserable but it's definitely not fun seeing yourself get beat on almost everything in dungeons by specs several ilvls below you. We do good single target but since boss fights are 1 min~ in heroic and 2 min~ in mythic, classes with good cooldowns tend to look as good if not better than us on single target, not to mention we can't use our best ability, S2M, in dungeons. It's only going to get worse as everyone gets more gear and those fights become even shorter.

I'm hoping mythic+ changes this and that fights actually do last a decent amount of time, but I somehow doubt that unless you are doing stupid high mythic+, since I imagine the scaling is like torment in diablo 3.

IMHO, for spriest to be enjoyable I think you need to raid and love the s2m talent, otherwise you are better off playing something else.

[justflayin]

What? I never dip below 95% HP and I take like 5 enemies at a time! Oh... I forgot to mention I am a Guardian Druid

Oh a tank doesn't take much dmg from mobs that mostly do physical dmg as opposed to a clothie with no gear. surprise surprise.

[Banana1]

Oh a tank doesn't take much dmg from mobs that mostly do physical dmg as opposed to a clothie with no gear. surprise surprise.

Trolling successful, feelings compounded and rubbed in. Aahhhh sweet tears... mmmm

[Theed]

I decided to level my shadow priest to 110 first, because I liked its playstyle the most of all specs during pre-patch (I'm an arena player).
The only PvE I every did was challenge modes, and so I wanted to try mythic+ dungeons.
Some of my friends carried me in heroics to gear up, after a few instances I hit 720 ilvl and we started mythics.
At this point I was mostly on par with both other dps on boss fights (Ash'Golm: Mage 129k, DK 120k, me 111k, tank 80k, healer 60k DPS), however I fell behind on trash obviously.
After we were done with mythics we carried a friend in heroics (790 uh-dk). It was disgusting how much more AoE dmg he did than me (734, no major artifact trait yet), and he was also pretty close in single target dps. (He just dinged 110, and did about 330k AoE dps while I struggled to get to 200k).

This paired with the horrible questing experience with Voidform and just about every mob in the game having a silence / knock / stun for Void Torrent really doesn't feel good at all.

I haven't tried PvP yet, but I hope it's gonna be a better experience than dungeons / questing.

If you want to casual pvp, spriest will be one of the worst specs to pvp with. Spriest only shines with decent teammates in a 3v3 or RBG environment. It is also one of the hardest specs to master in a competetive pvp environment.

[justflayin]

Trolling successful, feelings compounded and rubbed in. Aahhhh sweet tears... mmmm

What tears? You described exactly what should be happening. Tanks don't take much physical damage from quest mobs. Clothies do. Not really sure what you're trying to get out of it but good job? Try to stay on topic maybe.

[Gonder]

I honestly have to agree with this. At first, I thought the new concept for Shadow was really cool, and still kind of do, but the gameplay truly is the clunkiest thing I have bared to witness within this game. Fighting bosses? The spec is brilliant. Fighting trash, whether it be in a raid/dungeon environment or out in the world? Prepare to meet the definition of clunky.

Honestly, by the time Legion launched, I knew that Shadow was going to be pure cancer to level in up to 110, so, for the entirety of my leveling experience this expansion, I was Holy. Let me tell you, it gets pretty damn boring dealing with Holy's bland as all heck rotation for so many hours of play, although I didn't die a single time. It's hilarious, really, that when I got to 110, I switched to Shadow out of curiosity, to see if it would perform as terribly as I suspected it would; funny story: it performed even worse. Every single fight brought me down to at least 40% health, and a lot of times I was fighting more than a single enemy at once, which makes me want to stab my eyes out with a sharpened knife as I mashed Shadow Meld and ruined my rotation just for the sake of not dying immediately.

I honestly hoped I would never have to say this, but I really dislike Shadow now, enough that I may as well hate it. The fact that I have to play Holy for the rest of the expansion, even out in the world, is saddening to me. As much more bland as it was, I would honestly take the old Shadow back now if it were an option. I dislike DOT gameplay, I find it boring as all heck and a pain in the butt to maintain, and it's simply not fun to me. Give me burst Shadow back! Better yet, give me Devouring Plague and shadow orbs back, then I will feel comfortable playing my main again.

[justflayin]

I honestly have to agree with this. At first, I thought the new concept for Shadow was really cool, and still kind of do, but the gameplay truly is the clunkiest thing I have bared to witness within this game. Fighting bosses? The spec is brilliant. Fighting trash, whether it be in a raid/dungeon environment or out in the world? Prepare to meet the definition of clunky.

Honestly, by the time Legion launched, I knew that Shadow was going to be pure cancer to level in up to 110, so, for the entirety of my leveling experience this expansion, I was Holy. Let me tell you, it gets pretty damn boring dealing with Holy's bland as all heck rotation for so many hours of play, although I didn't die a single time. It's hilarious, really, that when I got to 110, I switched to Shadow out of curiosity, to see if it would perform as terribly as I suspected it would; funny story: it performed even worse. Every single fight brought me down to at least 40% health, and a lot of times I was fighting more than a single enemy at once, which makes me want to stab my eyes out with a sharpened knife as I mashed Shadow Meld and ruined my rotation just for the sake of not dying immediately.

I honestly hoped I would never have to say this, but I really dislike Shadow now, enough that I may as well hate it. The fact that I have to play Holy for the rest of the expansion, even out in the world, is saddening to me. As much more bland as it was, I would honestly take the old Shadow back now if it were an option. I dislike DOT gameplay, I find it boring as all heck and a pain in the butt to maintain, and it's simply not fun to me. Give me burst Shadow back! Better yet, give me Devouring Plague and shadow orbs back, then I will feel comfortable playing my main again.

Shadow has pretty much always been about dots. COP was a detour in WOD, and the DS tier set which I don't think blizz intended it to be that way.

[Gonder]

Shadow has pretty much always been about dots. COP was a detour in WOD, and the DS tier set which I don't think blizz intended it to be that way.

I can agree with this. CoP was definitely intended to be a detour, and was not the core gameplay style that was intended for Shadow. Nonetheless, to my misfortune, I preferred the burstier style of the spec, and that is something that is unlikely to serve me well any time in the near future.

[Deleted]

I think it's you tbh, my experience with shadow has been far different to yours. Outside of void form you need to be careful with your pulls, but with pws mind bomb and flay you can lock down most mobs and packs, long enough to enter void. once in void it's time to pull more and more, using mind bomb and getting distance with shield. I solo higher rares with no issue when others classes get stomped. Dungeon aoe is just multidot and save void for bosses unless you are sure it will be back before hand. Once you have the first dragon trait (on the far right) your trash damage goes through the roof. Boss fights are as always about positioning. Mind sear is for all reasonable purposes useless, so don't waste your time unless you think you can dot up 5 plus mobs and use it as a filler. But by the time you are juggling that many SWP sear is still meh.

Regarding stm it's brilliant in mythic dungeons if you are with lower geared friends or wanting quick runs, as you can easy carry the dps. There are little to no Stuns that cant be avoided so stay out of the shit and you will be fine.

At the end of the day if you don't like it change class. But the class is more then fine. Just get used to it, also the howtopriest discord is a super place with loads of helpful shadow friends!

[Deleted]

If you want to casual pvp, spriest will be one of the worst specs to pvp with. Spriest only shines with decent teammates in a 3v3 or RBG environment. It is also one of the hardest specs to master in a competetive pvp environment.

I know, I achieved my highest rating playing Shatterplay. I prefer the playstyle over cleave comps.

[Deleted]

I'd personally recommend rolling a Rogue to anybody who isn't happy with their current class. I'm having SUCH a fun time playing Outlaw at the moment, the damage is absolutely insane and the rotation is fairly rewarding The only down side is Roll The Bones can be a huge bitch :/

Either way, I played a bit of Shadow when they brought the changes in and I didn't really fall in love with the style

[Kooja]

Here's the issue in a nutshell:

Despite shadow being the most fun to play in a very long time (maybe ever?), performance on dps meters, particularly trash and short lived mobs, is beyond underwhelming, it's so bad. Also, questing as a fresh 110 is more difficult for shadow than most specs, especially large packs of low health mobs who are meant to die fast, but we can't kill them fast. BUT ITS SO MUCH FUN TO PLAY

[Zantera]

I think Shadow was definitely more fun to play in WotLK and MoP, maybe even more fun in WoD as well.

Personally I miss Devouring Plague and Shadow Orbs. I like the new idea in concept but Surrender to Madness feels like a troll talent and one which is very limited in its use, overall the rotation is just kinda there. It's really not that fun.

[l33t]

I'd personally recommend rolling a Rogue to anybody who isn't happy with their current class. I'm having SUCH a fun time playing Outlaw at the moment, the damage is absolutely insane and the rotation is fairly rewarding

Yeah, I can back it up, Outlaw is absolutely awesome to play.

[zenkai]

I've stuck with my Shadow Priest for as long as I remember, and I've never felt this miserable before. Solo questing doesn't feel very smooth or fun, when I reached level 110 the enemies hit like trucks and our survivability is lackluster. The enormous build up combined with the clunkiness of Voidform just makes questing as a Shadow Priest a pretty terrible experience.

Don't get me started on dungeons. Apparently I need to start getting used to flames, because even the tanks does twice as much AoE damage as me. I always end up at the bottom of the chart, maybe a bit higher if it's on easy bosses, but those are not in abundance. The rest requires too much moving around for any of our spells to be legit. Void Torrent? Think again, stunned.

I feel like we need amazing gear to be able to compete with the rest of the classes in terms of damage and I'm only getting Mastery and Versatility. It's really disheartening when we're in this terrible state. Maybe I'm just bad? Our class is one of the most complex classes when you have to think about insanity and keeping Voidform up for as long as possible and it doesn't feel rewarding at all, especially if you want to focus and chill with dungeons.

I hate the changes to shadow, I don't even care about the AE damage, I have gone back to healing because of it. Although doing dungeons reminded me why I started to hate healing, you notice how terrible people are at this game. Been playing my priest since the game Launched, might finally retire him...

[Tarien]

Agreed, shadow for anything other than long (raid) boss fights is just garbage in terms of fun and output. Fortunately I only levelled my priest to heal dungeons and BGs with some friends, but I think if I want to scratch the DPS itch it'll be with some other class.

[Thaylen]

Add another to the list of Shadow departers. I mained Shadow through every raid instance of MoP and WoD but am so unhappy with the spec right now I've shelved it and re-rolled. Great for boss fights, clunky as hell and underwhelming for everything else.

I'm sure Shadow will get some limelight on the DPS charts and boss logs in Legion, but I'm also sure that if the devs are tracking the # of people maining a shadow priest this xpac, they will see it plummet from what it has been. Wish these were statistics available to us, I'd be curious to see them.

[Deleted]

I love the way the spec plays in voidform, but outside of void form oh god it's dreary. I'm not sure if it's due to my low haste but at 109 I struggle to get more than 35 stacks. I agree with everyone else on here that are AoE is non existent, they should of at least made shadowcrash have a 15 sec cd. In normal dungeons i'm averaging around 92k, while ww monks are about 140k....lol.

[Deleted]

I will agree with OP on that the AoE/soloing experience is grindy af due to how the class is designed. However, you are flat out wrong saying that we "can barely do anything on bosses" 90% of the dungeon bosses I end up top DPS, and garuanteed top if I am running Surrender to Madness (cuz that talent is fucking hype). And when it comes to raid bosses, if you actually pay attention to the boss area/abilities you should still absolutely crush everyone else on most raid bosses aswell, Surrender or not.

On a sidenote tho, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST the Withered Training scenario on SPriest is ACTUAL cancer. :s

[Shaiandra]

I haven't had too much trouble while questing (likely slower than other classes but at least I haven't died except when I accidentally pulled some +6 elites I didn't see) and I think I won't mind playing Shadow for raids, but I feel that I should play a different class for Mythic+ dungeons. I like Shadow in its optimal situations (which I feel will be more common in raids), but it's sooo bad in its non-optimal situations, which dungeons mainly are... A bit less ramp up and getting some AoE would go a long way.

Would it be too much to ask for Shadow Crash (and even Legacy of the Void) baseline? I feel Mind Sear needs to be reworked too. It's abysmal as is, but I also don't want to go back to the days where our AoE consists of simply channeling Mind Sear over and over. Make it do more damage and perhaps VT/SWP don't expire while being hit by Sear, or something like Monk's Spinning Crane Kick where it does more AoE damage for each DOTted enemy.. Something that encourages us to DOT a few before using it but then does worthwhile damage.

I love when I get to make good use of StM, but I don't see how it can be balanced as a talent. In my opinion, talent choices only work where slightly riskier (more difficult to use) talents provide slightly more reward. StM is incredibly high risk and appropriately very high reward, which means its competitors must also be fairly high reward to be considered choices, which would mean they should also have high risk... but is it reasonable to have a talent tier with three high risk choices?