We're not getting the promised revamp in 7.0 for shadow?

[Vaeladin]

Of course everything is always a promise.

[Bulwarkcoco]

Of course everything is always a promise.

..Maybe the Spriest revamp will be our always? <3

[l33t]

Power Infusion: DPS cooldown talent, 40% increased haste for 20 secs, 2 min cd.

Speaking of which, I'd love PI to NOT increase haste, but to increase damage dealt instead. It is really stupid to have a "cooldown" which you are almost not allowed to line up with biggest group cooldown ever - Bl/hero. +25% damage for 20 seconds, 3 min cd would be nice and awesome.

[Blackmorgrim]

How are you not allowed to line them up? The two of them stack? Nearly everything we have scales with haste far past the gcd cap, except for mind spike. Although I will admit, 25% increased damage would scale far better with DP than haste.

If anything, that's the one time VEnt's mechanics are better than standard DP.

[Deleted]

After Blizzcon, then you should be worried.

Everything points to a revamp or at least significant changes due to how difficult shadow is to balance right now. If you buff 1 specific spell, you can indirectly nerf one talent in favor of another. Redundant talents as well, redundant glyphs to some extent and a messed up system makes me think they need to change the spec entirely to fix some of these issues regarding design and balance.

Shadow currently also relies too much on adds living long enough to give them sustained DPS, ie. if your raid is well geared, shadow performs worse. VEntropy, they just gave up on and CoP they haven't done much with either since HM. AS is just a huge burden to them at the moment.

[Licketysplit77]

Hoping to see something big for shadow as previously promised, i Don;t see why they can't break the mould again. Demon Hunters have 1 less tree than the regular 3, why can't priest get 1 more and have 4, 2 heal / 2 dps

[Yvaelle]

@BlackMorgrim

I really like the idea of Shadow being a more rage-based mechanic, rather than Orbs. Might I suggest either Volition (meaning Force of Will) as the name, or perhaps Dominion (over the mind)

I also really like the idea of giving our talent tiers a more specific purpose: empowering a singular spell to many distinct purposes, rather than a nebulous theme (control, survivability, movement, burst, aoe, shadow orbs).

With that said, I think a major overhaul would be a good time to go further with some of the theory of shadow game-play elements I wrote about when Shadow Orbs were introduced at the start of MoP, some is out-dated, but the concepts I think still apply:

Shadow needs a proper re-design, the devs have clearly been thinking about it for the last two expansions, but I suspect they don't know where to go from here. If the next beta should shine on us a little, I want to give them some ideas they are welcome to steal and take all the credit for

The Role of Hybrid Supports

Hybrids have gone through some bizarre times during the last few expansions. In TBC our role was entirely support, with trivial DPS but an incredible amount of soft power through various combinations of buffs, debuffs, dispels and heals. In WotLK our damage was brought close to par with the pure DPS specs, while our utility was decreased dramatically - but still a strong niche in the game. Cataclysm lead to even greater parity in damage, and further reduced support. In Pandaria the trend ends. The damage delta between specs has increased and our utility diminishes - but emphasis on support healing has expanded for all hybrids.

While homogenization is important for balance, differentiation is important for success and enjoyment in a competitive environment - it adds valuable flavour to classes and makes them feel unique and relatable. Support healing is just one model for what hybrids could offer. I propose Shadow move into a different niche (likely accompanied by Shamans) as a way to differentiate ourselves once more. We should offer less support healing, but retain or gain support dispels and defensive buffs:

The following specs should continue to be support Healers:
- Ret Paladins - they possess a natural affinity toward the light, and should possess powerful instant heal procs
- Balance Druids - they are masters of the 'balance' of nature, yet they are heavily lop-sided toward damage dealing, healing should be improved
- Windwalker Monks - improve their healing output, but reduce or remove their access to defensive peels through 2x disarms and tiger's lust

The following specs should offer an alternate support model based on dispels and defensive utility, but not (really) heals:
- Shadow Priests - should regain a Purify effect (defensive Dispel Magic), lose access to Holy spells on speccing Shadow, but gain a powerful Black Shield effect
- Elemental Shamans - gain Cleanse Spirit (defensive dispel) but lose access to Healing Surge, gain Earth Shield
- Enhancement Shamans - gain Cleanse Spirit (defensive dispel) but lose access to Healing Surge, gain Earth Shield
- all three specs should receive a stronger version of offensive dispel than anyone else (particularly healers), dispelling 2 magic effects without a cooldown



Shadow Orbs as a Real Secondary Resource
The devs want this to be an important secondary resource mechanic for Shadow. As it stands it is a cheap imitation of Holy Power. Without radically changing the nature of the resource (ie. energy, fury), we can learn a lot by comparing to Holy Power and avoiding and correcting for the mistakes that Holy Power has encountered as a much older and more robust resource.

- Abilities should consume a maximum of 3 Shadow Orbs, but we should be able to pool up to 5 orbs at a time
- Shadow needs at least four tools it can spend Shadow Orbs on
- Needs a frequent-use generator that scales with haste and is an instant ability so we can build our resource consistently

Retribution builds Holy Power via Crusader Strike and Divine Purpose. Crusader Strike is only a 4.5 second cooldown and is reduced by haste - our Mind Blast is an 8 second cooldown and not reduced by haste. One solution here would be to reduce the cooldown of Mind Blast, but that would make it seem too similar - a better solution would be to create an alternate generation method (such as Divine Purpose) that is stronger than Divine Purpose - but keep our normal Orb building mechanic as Mind Blast with an 8 second cooldown.

I'd propose the following as Shadow Orb generators:

Mind Blast *redesigned* - instant cast, 10 second cooldown (up from 8), cooldown reduced by haste

Coagulate *new* - passive - regenerates 1 Shadow Orb every 30 seconds

Glyph of Dispersion *redesigned* - while Dispersion is active you regenerate 1 Shadow Orb every 2 seconds.

Shadow Word: Death *unchanged*


And the following finishers to spend Shadow Orbs on:
- Devouring Plague removed

Mind War *new* - channeled - Consumes 3 Shadow Orbs to deal 110% of spellpower each second for 5 seconds. Mind War heals the Priest for 5% of max health each time it deals damage.

Black Shield *new* - instant cast. Consumes 3 Shadow Orbs to create an absorption shield on the target for 400% of Spellpower. While Black Shield is active the target is immune to spell pushback, interrupts and silence. Undispellable.

Shadow Word: Despair *new* - instant cast. Consumes 3 Shadow Orbs to deal progressively more damage each second over 8 seconds. Despair snares the target by 20% initially, and an additional 10% each second for the duration, up to 99%. If Despair is dispelled, the dispeller suffers Despair instead, and the priest regains 2 Shadow Orbs.


Additionally, lesser but still powerful abilities should consume a single Shadow Orb - this is a method of reducing burst power by floating a mix of offensive and defensive cooldowns and then rapidly blowing through a list of powerful cooldowns (of different sorts) in a matter of seconds. It creates alternate paths to success and would make the system feel very robust, let me draw up some example abilities and then explain why it becomes interesting:


Desperate Prayer *moved* - Desperate Prayer is now the level 87 ability for all Priests.

Void Shift *redesigned* - Shadow Only. Costs 1 Shadow Orb. The shadowpriest instantly exchanges places with the targetted ally or enemy, 20 second cooldown.

Psychic Horror *redesigned* - Costs 1 Shadow Orb. Disarms the opponent of their weapon for 8 seconds. 60 second cooldown.

Fade *redesigned*(for Shadow) - Costs 1 Shadow Orb. Greatly reduces threat for 10 seconds, for the first 3 seconds the priest is untargetable. 30 second cooldown.


What does this mean for Shadow PvP?

First it should be noted I'm assuming we would lose access to the 15% damage reduction that Shadowform provides, as well as all Holy spells including Flash Heal, Renew and Prayer of Mending: while specced Shadow. With the loss of so much of our current survivability, we would need new tools to make us more competitive with Mages and Warlocks in terms of survivability through mobility and good use of cooldowns (but notably not via tanking and healing through damage as we have always done).


What makes this system interesting is that gives us a lot of options - but limits our ability to use those options in rapid succession. The ability to save up 5 minutes worth of cooldowns and then use all of them inside 30 seconds is part of what is wrong with PvP currently, everyone has so many cooldowns that - should they use them all at once - it's in some cases impossible to counter. For Shadow at least, we can address this growing problem (for all classes) by tying our best abilities to our secondary resource (Shadow Orbs).

If I'm being tunneled I could use Void Shift on a melee teammate to simultaneously drop them into the action and remove myself from harms way. Alternately, if a teammate is getting tunneled I can use Void Shift in reverse - to remove them from harms way and drop myself in their place - and then presumably Psychic Scream Alternately, a good use of Void Shift would also be to displace fleeing opponents, or I could Void Shift one enemy to get sight on a second enemy who thought they were safe.

This makes Void Shift alone an incredibly powerful mobility tool for both offense and defense - the kind of mobility we would need in a world where we are no longer expected to tank our opponents, but instead kite to survive (much like mages and locks in MoP). However, by tying it to the Shadow Orb we diminish our damage dealing potential if we want to make use of this utility - I can Void Shift to get eyes on a line of sight enemy healer, but doing so will lose me an orb I'd need to follow up with Despair or Mind War: making it worthwhile, but only if I think I can finish them without my finisher (ie. Shadow Word: Death alone, without Mind War or SW: Despair). The 20 second cooldown of course makes sure we can't build up many orbs and Void Shift repeatedly.

Psychic Horror costing 3 Shadow Orbs has been borderline unused all expansion - we use it when we only have 1 Shadow Orb available, but it's just not a competitive value to Devouring Plague when we have 2 or 3 orbs active. By making Psychic Horror only consume 1 Orb, but removing the horror effect and increasing the cooldown - we make a disarm ability which is the highest cost Disarm in the game (no other disarm costs secondary resource) - but which will continue to be a useful peel if the circumstances are right. You wouldn't want to use it on cooldown (as most disarms are used) for fear of the orb cost, but it would always be "available" when you need it since it will only consume 1 Orb rather than 0 (can't cast it) or 3 (Waayyy too expensive).

Fade returns to the pre 5.2 (5.1?) state of being a target drop which we can use for avoiding crowd control, but now has a cost appropriate for the ability - it's still definitely worth Fading if your team is being pressured and you are about to be dropped into a long CC chain where you won't be able to help - but like Psychic Horror it's not something you want to do on cooldown just because you can because it costs you significant damage.

The 3 Shadow Orb maximum cost of abilities works as it does now, but the 5 Shadow Orb capacity means if Coagulate or Divine Insight procs we are no longer losing valuable Orbs to a poorly designed system. It also means that a Spriest who hasn't been pressured enough to need to use their abilities for a minute can build up 5 Shadow Orbs at once, and then time their next Coagulate tick with their burst - such that they can go:
Shadow Word: Despair -> Halo -> Mind War -> Shadow Word: Death. That makes for a pretty impressive burst cycle (comparable to the 1-2 minute burst cycles of other classes) - but it has a Lot of ways it can be shut down (unlike other classes):
1. if the fight is close the spriest needs their Orbs for utility and peels, preventing them from accumulating many orbs.
2. a healer can defensively dispel VT+Pain+Despair to negate an enormous amount of this stars-align damage cycle.
3. anyone with a kick or CC can interrupt the Mind War->Death to alternately disrupt much of such a damage cycle.
4. should the enemy survive that, the spriest just put themselves at a massive detriment accumulating orbs for the last minute, and now has no utility and gain for doing so (meaning that major defensive cooldowns are particularly effective against it - the spriest should choose their kill targets very carefully)

This means Spriests need to have a hefty knowledge of their opponents cooldowns and capabilities, they need to have excellent situational awareness of what has already been used and which un-CC'd enemies could disrupt them, and they need to coordinate significantly with their team to pull it all off. It also means they need to sacrifice their utility and control for the minute building up to it, and if something disrupts their teams preparation (CC'd teammates for example) - they lose a Lot for sitting at the 5 orb cap for too long.

Some people will likely criticize this model for making Shadow harder than it needs to be, but I think the Spriest community can handle the difficulty - and will enjoy returning to being a very high skill cap and coordination-based class, rather than the simplistic model of Mists of Pandaria. It gives us a clear and defined class vision - we no longer have any support heals - but we do have a very powerful Black Shield and the return of an instant defensive dispel to support our healers once more, we return to having powerful battlefield control as we had using Death to break poly's and strong defensive and offensive dispels - and we also have to juggle a now much more complex DPS system during that.

What I like most about this model is that it allows Spriests to choose how to play their class on an Arena team. A spriest playing in a Shatterplay or Shatreeplay (Shadow/Frost Mage/Restoration Healer) can leverage their teammates strong control to accumulate more orbs for their burst cycles. Alternately, a spriest in a currently-less-competitive comp can leverage their 1 Shadow Orb ability spells to exert greater support at the cost of losing much of their burst cycles.

The best shadowpriests will do both depending on how they predict the next minute or two of the game will play out. If the enemy blows through their offensive cooldowns but fails to score a kill, a good spriest will see that and spend their orbs on DPS or pool orbs for damage (Mind War and Despair) - knowing that their utility won't be needed for a moment: if the Spriest mis-judges and the enemy team is still dangerous, they won't have access to their peels and utility (and somebody will probably die). This means most spriests will always want at least 1 Orb in their back-pocket, but will never want to have 5 orbs for fear of a 6th orb being lost - we will try to float between 1 and 4 as best we can, and only spend our last orb or build a 5th orb if we are desperate or very confident in our predictions. That, to me, sounds like a Lot of fun.



What does this mean for Shadow PvE?

While many of these changes have obvious PvP implications, I want to point out that I'm not solely thinking of how to improve Shadow PvP here. Shadow PvE has felt out of place all through Mists of Pandaria, and I hope to remedy it. I'll repost the particularly relevant changes to PvE as a brief overview:

*Shadow Orb Finishers consume a maximum of 3 Shadow Orbs, but we have a capacity for 5 Shadow Orbs at a time*

Shadow Orb Generators:
Mind Blast *redesigned* - instant cast, 10 second cooldown (up from 8), cooldown reduced by haste

Coagulate *new* - passive - regenerates 1 Shadow Orb every 30 seconds

Glyph of Dispersion *redesigned* - while Dispersion is active you regenerate 1 Shadow Orb every 2 seconds.

Shadow Word: Death *unchanged*

Shadow Orb Finishing Moves:
*Devouring Plague removed

Mind War *new* - channeled - Consumes 3 Shadow Orbs to deal 110% of spellpower each second for 5 seconds. Mind War heals the Priest for 5% of max health each time it deals damage.

Black Shield *new* - instant cast. Consumes 3 Shadow Orbs to create an absorption shield on the target for 400% of Spellpower. While Black Shield is active the target is immune to spell pushback, interrupts and silence. Undispellable.

Shadow Word: Despair *new* - instant cast. Consumes 3 Shadow Orbs to deal progressively more damage each second over 8 seconds. Despair snares the target by 20% initially, and an additional 10% each second for the duration, up to 99%. If Despair is dispelled, the dispeller suffers Despair instead, and the priest regains 2 Shadow Orbs.

1. This means we begin each fight with 5 Shadow Orbs (either by 150 seconds since our last used Shadow Orb for Coagulate to generate 5, or by using Dispersion on the run back), allowing us to make use of the common practice of Bloodlusting on the pull of most bosses so that everyone can blow their cooldowns as effectively as possible (currently we get very little benefit of Bloodlust on the pull since we don't have Orbs yet): problem solved.

2. It means that while we can't float a lot of burst all at once, Devouring Plague no longer dictates we need to use our finisher - before our next orb generates (DI proc, MB cooldown, or SW: Death cooldown). We can use it on 3 Orbs to always be safe, or if we're monitoring our Coagulate internal cooldown we can build up to 4 or 5 with careful attention. Generally it is safest and most prudent to use a Finisher whenever you have 3 Orbs, but good PvE spriests can micro-manage the 5-orb pool to get greater effect out of cooldowns like Power Infusion, damage buff boss mechanics, or for burning important upcoming adds down a little faster.

3. Giving us two ways to deal damage with Orbs (Mind War and Despair) means building up 5 orbs at once isn't useless, it also means that during high movement phases we can use Despair to get some good damage out while moving - conversely Mind War rewards us for being able to stand still for 5 seconds and channel without interruption.

4. Making Mind Blasts instant means we aren't crippled by heavy movement fights - because we can continue to generate our resources at a normal rate regardless of movement - it's still far from optimal to be moving however - since much of our time is spent channelling (Mind Flay and Mind War).

Overall, I think this address much of what I dislike about Shadow's PvE DPS priorities - it removes a lot of the quality of life issues and fight mechanic grievances, and makes our Shadow Orb "resource" give us more than one thing to use it on. It doesn't make the class overly complex to the level that some of us took it to in WotLK and Cataclysm - it's still pretty straight-forward for beginners - but it also gives the more advanced among us something to obsess over again.



I'd like to do a little more with the PvE DPS systems still. Obviously this is just a work in progress, a collection of ideas for how Shadow could be improved.

Thank you all for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts, critiques and support for these ideas

I think we could incorporate a lot of the ideas in your post and my old one, to create a really good model for what Shadow should become

[Djriff]

@Licketysplit77 i would rather they balance the three specs we have first.

@Yvaelle i really like those ideas. Would be nice to have more than 1 thing to spend orbs on in a raid environment and would be really good in pvp. I would probably increase the cost of some of those abilities to 2 orbs to prevent 5 orb cap chaining of powerful orb abilities. Chaining Despair with Mind War would be very nice. Especially if you timed it so you could Despair, fade, mb, gain your 30 second orb, mind war, double tap SW: D.

[Kaesebrezen]

@Yvaelle i really like those ideas. Would be nice to have more than 1 thing to spend orbs on in a raid environment and would be really good in pvp.

There aren't really many options to add as Orb Spenders in a raid environment...

... Ret has exactly two spenders: One Single-Target, one AoE.
... Feral has 3 thingies: One self buff, one DoT, one big hitter.

Self Buffs only work if you create a lot of your resource - which doesn't apply to Orbs.
Having two single-target spenders only works if and when you actually generate enough resources to use boss (as ferals do) - just look at VEnt, it's so heavily limited by Orb generation that using it on several targets is crappy, even though it's refreshed by DP.

Aside of adding an AoE Orb spender - which is unneeded as Searing Insanity kind of does that - , or some PvP only support stuff, there is hardly any room to add other Orb Spenders. GC back in time one time said that more Orb Spenders make only sense if you generates resources fast enough to actually use them.

It's simply better to get rid of Shadow Orbs than to try to make something out of it.

[Djriff]

I think black shield could have some good uses in a raid. Sacraficing dps for utility is ok in my book.

Self buffs are only soso as ret pallies had inquisition baked into them rather than something you had to upkeep.

[Kaesebrezen]

I think black shield could have some good uses in a raid. Sacraficing dps for utility is ok in my book.

Generally nobody trades damage for support. You don't really see Retri's throwing out WoGs/EFs or Flash of Lights, simple because it costs damage.

We have PW:S - and as long as we have that we simple do not need another Absorb. Taking away PW:S would also not work - just turn around and look how WoD leveling (in non Heroic SoO gear) would've been without DP self healing and PW:S absorbs.

[Djriff]

You wouldnt have to use it all the time and the price for it is justified. It could be used on top of pw: s to let you absorb a mechanic that wouldnt detract like dispersion does. If anything i would change it to how dp use to work, cap it at 3 orbs and each orb increases the shield amount by x% of SP.

Rets don't normally flash heal unles its in arenas. In a raid it may save someone in a pinch but the main difference between these 2 spells in particular is one is an absorb that can be applied before damage and the other is pure reaction.

[Stormspellz]

just gotta say....totems

[Yvaelle]

There aren't really many options to add as Orb Spenders in a raid environment...

... Ret has exactly two spenders: One Single-Target, one AoE.
... Feral has 3 thingies: One self buff, one DoT, one big hitter.

I think it's entirely possible to have multiple good choices.

Mind War is burst and self-heal, Despair is a DOT and potent non-channeled snare, Black Shield is a defensive cooldown + reflective damage.

Self Buffs only work if you create a lot of your resource - which doesn't apply to Orbs.

Self buffs are often a cop-out to proper design, unless they are either short enough to be a burst cooldown (old Empowered Shadows / Orbs from Cataclysm), the Ret/Feral minute-long self-buffs are really just poor design: I'd never advocate a finisher to work that way.

Having two single-target spenders only works if and when you actually generate enough resources to use both (as ferals do) - just look at VEnt, it's so heavily limited by Orb generation that using it on several targets is crappy, even though it's refreshed by DP.

Void Entropy is horrible for a dozen reasons beyond it not being worth the cost of a DP, it also costs health/survivability, is extremely likely to fall off / target die before it even breaks even on damage, can't be used for burst, can't be lined up with cooldowns or procs, has a cast time, isn't a fun ability (fire and forget), and excludes both of the most distinctive and enjoyable parts of the spec (exclusive with AS and CoP). Everything about Void Entropy's implementation is purpose-built to be as terrible as possible.

Aside of adding an AoE Orb spender - which is unneeded as Searing Insanity kind of does that - , or some PvP only support stuff, there is hardly any room to add other Orb Spenders. GC back in time one time said that more Orb Spenders make only sense if you generates resources fast enough to actually use them.

Which we do if we need to, if we wanted to burst a very high priority target, 5 Orbs -> Despair -> Mind Blast -> Mind War, gives us that option. If we don't have the time to channel, Despair lets us multi-dot another short-length DoT for a single GCD. If we need pure single target damage, Mind War should outperform Despair for a orb-damage-efficiency perspective: if the GCDs aren't needed (single target).

It's simply better to get rid of Shadow Orbs than to try to make something out of it.

I was proposing we use BlackMorgrim's mechanic (perhaps named Volition, or Dominion), rather than Shadow Orbs - I started the whole old post off with a rant about why Shadow Orbs were a crappy mechanic to begin with (and this is back when Shadow Orbs came out in MoP). I never thought they made any thematic sense beyond as a visible representation of our dominance over reality/mind.

Specifically though, it wasn't so much the spells I wanted to bring back up (though I still like them all) - but the idea of - since they seem to be plotting to reintroduce hybrid niches, and dehomogenize the game in LEGION, to break out the Supports as I outlined at the start:

Ret / Balance / Feral / WW = Hybrids with burst healing support

Shadow / Elemental / Enhancement = Hybrids with superlative offensive/defensive dispels

I think this gives us strong niches without making us overly broad: watering down everything until we're good at nothing. So for example when they are trying to balance Shadow in PvP, they are constantly thinking about how we used to have Shield + Flash Heal + Prayer of Mending + Renew + Devouring Plague + Vampiric Embrace. In terms of ways to heal ourselves, that seems like a lot for a hybrid to have - but in practice all of them kept getting watered down until they were individually worthless: and it required using the full suite to make an impact - while Mages could just pop Cold Snap and self-heal instantly for more than our entire suite would do combined, over half a dozen GCDs.

So I think part of 'the hybrid problem' - is that we're too diverse, the WoD ability collapse addressed this somewhat: but it would be better to get greater differentiation, strong specific diverse niche - rather than a little of everything. It would allow them to balance Shadow's self-healing without also buffing our support healing (ex. buff passive Vampiric Embrace self-healing, but lose Flash Heal). Or it would let them say, "well, Shadow lost access to Power Word: Shield, but gained their own Shadowy Shadow": it gives more flavor to the spec.

Other parts I thought relevant related to class design. Mind Blast should be instant and scale off haste - and they took that to heart when they made CoP - but I wanted it baseline because it makes the most sense. Kicking Mind Blast not only interrupts our short-term burst, but it also prevents us from building our resources: that's a problem unique to Shadow, and making it instant baseline resolves it.

By contrast, finishing moves should be casted/channeled: it makes them feel powerful, but also introduces counterplay (pvp) and foresight (pve) - raising the skill cap. That's something we arguably don't need (higher skill cap), and the Devs may not desire, but also something I know that I and many other shadowpriests like Shadow particularly for - because there is always something to improve upon.

- - - Updated - - -

You wouldnt have to use it all the time and the price for it is justified. It could be used on top of pw: s to let you absorb a mechanic that wouldnt detract like dispersion does. If anything i would change it to how dp use to work, cap it at 3 orbs and each orb increases the shield amount by x% of SP.

Plus I was suggesting it should deal reflective damage, so it does deal damage - albeit not as efficiently as Mind War or Despair - but there will be plenty of times where losing a little damage off a finisher will be worth ignoring a mechanic (like Warlocks with Sacrificial Pact last expansion), or saving a life. There are plenty of scenarios where a shield for like 100% of your health would be extremely beneficial, but especcially if it's also preventing you from being silenced, and/or dealing reflective damage. If anything, I think it risks being too strong (but that strength is offset by the DPS cost).

Rets don't normally flash heal unles its in arenas. In a raid it may save someone in a pinch but the main difference between these 2 spells in particular is one is an absorb that can be applied before damage and the other is pure reaction.

Currently they don't, but in past expansions Hybrid off-healing has been an essential part of some progression encounters: some raid damage phases would have been unbeatable were it not for the Spriests/Boomkins blowing all their mana to bomb heals, or Rets tossing out PvE WoGs like Lay of Hands. The first boss in Heart of Fear comes to mind - where the first guild that did it was stacking hybrids - so that when the overtuned raid healing phase hit, virtually everyone in the raid was suddenly a healer. That degree of stacking is rare and undesirable, but having a few hybrids in every raid who were able to help with clutch heals (Void Shift, Lay on Hands, etc) or dispels when necessary has been a boon to everybody I suspect: if not so much in WoD (but I consider this a mistake).

I actually like when we have that kind of support power, as an option, and I think Black Shield or something like it would help to bring that back: I just don't think it should be spammable (this is where Flash Heal typically becomes a problem), and I think of all the Hybrids, Spriests healing people makes the least sense, so giving us a Shadowy Shield and powerful dispels/purifies: that sounds like a great Support niche for Shadow to occupy

[GameFX]

Until the developers have a fundamental idea of what our lore and fantasy setting should be - Developing skills and talents will be difficult for them...as evident by our mish mash of terrible skills and talents...SW Pain and SW Death are the only ones I feel fit (maybe Insanity) When you have a theme or character to pull from it's easy to build a class IMO

DPlague = disease?
MindBender and Shadow Fiend = squid like creature??
VT = Leech effect?? (DoT protection in PvP is the only reason I feel this wasn't purged in 6.0.2)
VE = Leech effect??
Mind Spike = no idea??
Mind Flay & Sear = no idea??

There is just no cohesiveness there among those spells and talents - no theme that comes together. I never once saw how you have Holy and Discipline that uses the power of the Light and then Shadow somehow assaults the mind?? One would think it should just be opposite and use the Darkness or the Void.

I feel whomever developed the spells for the NPC's and bosses around and in Shadowmoon Burial Grounds should be tasked with rebuilding our spells - When I first started questing there I was like wow umm these guys are real shadow priests & although Ner'zhul is a shaman he severed his bond with the elements are turned to the Shadows and the Void so I feel like he could be looked at it for inspiration.

Once you have the theme and identity laid out - it's all uphill from there with skills and talents. They can start fresh instead of taking our current hash up of spells now and trying to make them work together somehow.

[ComputerNerd]

And what pattern is proven by the so-called "obvious" class history.
I would argue that hunters have such a class history, and look where they are taking Survival, into a Melee Spec.
What has long been called "obvious" by players sometimes isn't.

[Kegge]

DPlague = disease?
MindBender and Shadow Fiend = squid like creature??
VT = Leech effect?? (DoT protection in PvP is the only reason I feel this wasn't purged in 6.0.2)
VE = Leech effect??
Mind Spike = no idea??
Mind Flay & Sear = no idea??

There is just no cohesiveness there among those spells and talents - no theme that comes together.

I disagree. Other than the whole DP thing being just weird and not fitting and shadow orbs being depressingly vague I think "psionic vampire of the void" is a reasonable class background. I don't think that's TOO overcomplicated of a theme.

[Kaesebrezen]

Until the developers have a fundamental idea of what our lore and fantasy setting should be

We did get a pretty good answer to that in the 6.2 thread:

Shadow Priests should be the masters of the shadows cast by the light from the Holy Priests. In terms of lore and fantasy, they should focus on the powers of the Void. However, they’re still Priests; they know that what they’re dabbling with is dangerous, and have to try to go as far as they can without going *too* far. Pain, Insanity, Darkness… These are the tools they use on their enemies, and even a bit on themselves

It should be pretty clear that what we have no isn't really close to that fantasy. Just breaking apart that post:

- shadows cast by the light from HPs? Some kind of mirror setup to holy priest spells: Renew - SW:P, PoM - DDPoM, CoH - DDCoH, Heal - MB/MF, Binding Heal - AoE Flay with self damage.
- Void: Clear direction for spell graphics
- Don't go too far: basic class mechanic. most discussed was some sort of (In)Sanity/Darkness bar that fills when you do stuff, and somehow is emptied, with a sort of increasing punishment/benefit combination the fuller it is.
- Tools for their enemies, and even a bit on themselves: some sort of global backlash mechanic? punishment for going too far? some spells do backlash (a mirrored binding heal)

[Yvaelle]

Maybe it almost works like Balance in a way?

Dominion vs. Insanity, as we build up dominion over the minds of ourselves and those around us, we also touch insanity. So our spells become more potent, but begin to damage ourselves (the gnawing of our own mind as insanity beckons?). It's a good idea but probably not one the devs would embrace anymore - maybe back in TBC - but it'd probably have to go in a different game by now. So in a sense we'd be like Arc Mages actually, but at the apex of our psychic dominance, we are also hurting ourselves in the process.

Sounds terrible for PvP though, we'd need to bring back passive defenses or something too: wouldn't work in WoW, cool idea though.

[Djriff]

Maybe it almost works like Balance in a way?

I'm quite a fan of this idea.