Do you still enjoy Shadow?

[Spicymemer]

excuse me what

you have a really, really weird definition of "viable" if you claim that Shadow has been just about completely unviable for the game's entire life.

Spriest was viable in vanilla raids, they brought Shadow Weaving and shields/dispels.

Spriest was viable in BC with decent DPS and being a mana battery for the healers.

Spriest was all-around viable in WOTLK, doing pretty nice DPS (although the hybrid tax was still in place)

Didn't really play Shadow much throughout Cata or MoP, but it seemed okay enough.

They were pretty good in WoD as well.

And what the shit are you saying "3/20" for EN? Shadow was literally #1 DPS on single target fights due to StM.

I'm really, really questioning your claims of "mained shadow since vanilla".

You are why this forum is awful.

- - - Updated - - -

Ranking viability by number of that class/spec in the raid?

That's a....really, really weird and convoluted way of ranking something's viability.

Shadow has always been viable in PvE. The number in the raid is kinda irrelevant.

It isn't a really weird way of ranking somethings viability, infact its the best representation of the spec.

Lets say most dps specs would score 7-9/10, if you look at warcraft logs, it does suggest that even the lowest dps spec is 'close' to the mid-upper tier dps.
But if you go and fill a raid 1 type of dps, you're going to have a bad time.

So why not rank dps by the number of them you are willing and would make most use of in a raid scenario?

[anon5123]

But if you go and fill a raid 1 type of dps, you're going to have a bad time.

....who the hell would do that? Why would ANYONE "fill a raid with 1 type of dps" ? That's utterly ridiculous.

That only further shows why this idea of ranking viability by number of that spec in the raid, is a bad way of ranking the class. You're making up a situation that would never happen, and then basing everything around it.

And again, "viable" and "the best / highest dps" are completely different things. Just because you're not #1 DPS does not mean you're not viable.

You are why this forum is awful.

Oh, okay. To the ignore list you go~

[Spicymemer]

Oh, okay. To the ignore list you go~

Muh safe space.

God bless trump

[pyxos]

I've always liked Priest in general, shadow a bit less in older xpac but in Legion I feel like blizzard really tried to make something useful out of them, and they managed to do it right (if we ignore aoe). Single target rotation is fun, multi target is even funnier and pvp is amazing (I haven't tried 2v2 and 3v3, only rbg). I used to main a DK and have an alt priest, now i main the priest and don't play DK anymore lol

[Nihiel]

Spicymemer logic is what xd

"3/20 EN Legion" yeah EN was very mediocre for shadow, middle of the pack, nothing else to see, just another weak no-utility caster doing no dmg, outshone by locks and mages. Should've been at least 4/20 EN for the spec to be considered viable at all :^)

You claim you know better how to fix shadow than the entire wow dev team combined? And yet you rank spriest viability based on the number of spriests in a raid? Oh dear I don't even know what to say.

I'll agree that shadow has a few weaknesses (like any other spec) but your list is so biased.
As an example, you mention Dispersion cannot be used like immunities can. Of course it can't, it's not an immunity. Locks don't have immunities, neither do boomkins nor ele shamans - I guess that means those classes aren't viable either? Warlock might be stronger than shadow overall, but come on............. listing health stones as something significant? hahahhhaahah. You conveniently forgot to mention Mass Dispel which is unique to spriest compared to any other dps spec.

Sigh... This isn't a personal attack, but pleeeease. Be reasonable.

[Valette]

Yes very much. I've never played a dps spec I've enjoyed more. Its so fast paced and requires you to plan your movement ahead of time. The only times Im not enjoying the design very much is in fights where just being a shadow priest is super punishing. Like when the boss goes immune often and leaves you to lose all your insanity and voidstacks. Ooh, and when Im swarmed by small mobs (looking at you Imps in broken shore) and I need to dot em all individually.

For the "class fantasy" of us dabbling in old god power and going slightly insane from it I like too. Especially when DBM makes me /s during raids and my warnings come out as gibberish

[BobAwesome]

Spicymemer logic is what xd

"3/20 EN Legion" yeah EN was very mediocre for shadow, middle of the pack, nothing else to see, just another weak no-utility caster doing no dmg, outshone by locks and mages. Should've been at least 4/20 EN for the spec to be considered viable at all :^)

You claim you know better how to fix shadow than the entire wow dev team combined? And yet you rank spriest viability based on the number of spriests in a raid? Oh dear I don't even know what to say.

I'll agree that shadow has a few weaknesses (like any other spec) but your list is so biased.
As an example, you mention Dispersion cannot be used like immunities can. Of course it can't, it's not an immunity. Locks don't have immunities, neither do boomkins nor ele shamans - I guess that means those classes aren't viable either? Warlock might be stronger than shadow overall, but come on............. listing health stones as something significant? hahahhhaahah. You conveniently forgot to mention Mass Dispel which is unique to spriest compared to any other dps spec.

Sigh... This isn't a personal attack, but pleeeease. Be reasonable.

Uh no? lol. Spriests with S2M were beyond broken and ended up getting them crazy heavy nerfed.

[Chaarcl]

Nope, I'm actually considering rerolling for two main reasons.

1. Shadow's dps overall in ToS is good. Don't get me wrong. However because all our dps is back-loaded, when boss enters immunity phases, we get bad rng with mechanics or the boss goes out of range, we just get completely dicked - Our voidform falls off and our cooldowns go out of sync and we have to spend the next minute or so ramping up voidform stacks again.

2. This ties strongly to the first point. Unlike most other classes we only have one dps spec. If the fight is bad for us, we don't have the option to swap specs. Okay. So we can't swap specs, but not all classes can. But we also have no talent choices. ToF/BnS/MB/LI/AS/MB/LotV. Misery is only used for lowish M+ and Surrender is pretty much not viable at all anymore unless it's super easy farm.

Overall, I loved the playstyle, but over time (and with S2M no longer being viable) the spec has just gotten extremely stale with lack of talent choices.

[Deleted]

Not really, I mean it's a ok spec but i'm always called a wannabe affliction warlock by my guildies lol. I've taken to holy on mine recently just because we lack healers tho i have played/raided as shadow since the start of mop i just find the spec meh now...

[Cryonic]

Actually not. I find the rotation too confusing. I loved playing it in WOTLK and wanted to give it a try again but I'm not a huge fan of specs I need to watch slot of videos and practice slot just to get started with. I also found myself killing mobs very slowly while leveling

[Fleckens]

I do enjoy it although I must say that while our dps obviously was worse in nighthold I did enjoy the rotation more there with the previous tier set and power infusion.

[anon5123]

Actually not. I find the rotation too confusing.

Hm? Shadow has one of the simplest rotations.

Apply DoTs -> use Mind Blast on CD and Mind Flay as filler

in voidform, add in "use void bolt on CD".

After DoTs are up, it's literally 3 buttons for your main spells, with just two cooldowns to use. (mindbender and void torrent)

[Logwyn]

I got my Priest to 110. Tried doing World Quests as Discipline. Ugh. Lets take a good bit to kill anything Maybe it will be better at a high iLVL. Tried shadow... what a clunky rotation. Maybe I just need more practice or patient to learn it. But right now I've put it on the shelf. Maybe I'll reinvest some time in it at another time. All I want to do is get it to the iLVL to queue for Tomb but its a pain with even shadow to get it there....

[Kuruption]

I've just started shadow this expansion (dabbled in it before, but really don't remember a lot of it), and I really do love it. I always main a healer, and I usually dislike the dps spec of that class, but not this time around.

Like others have said, the burst AoE is beyond terrible. But I'm having a great time playing shadow so far this xpac.

[Lasombria]

I've just started shadow this expansion (dabbled in it before, but really don't remember a lot of it), and I really do love it. I always main a healer, and I usually dislike the dps spec of that class, but not this time around.

Like others have said, the burst AoE is beyond terrible. But I'm having a great time playing shadow so far this xpac.

Me too. I play priest on and off, most expansions. I like pretty much all the healers, but I don't like or do as well in melee as at range, and I much prefer shadow to elemental shaman. I reached kind of a tipping point with more gear and artifact power - having more artifact traits certainly helps - and now shadow is really feeling comfortable and fun to tool around with, even with the horribad AOE.

[Nihiel]

Uh no? lol. Spriests with S2M were beyond broken and ended up getting them crazy heavy nerfed.

It was sarcasm. lol

[Spicymemer]

It was sarcasm. lol

It cant be sarcasm if you dont understand what you quoted, re-read the post spastic.

[Deleted]

i don't like legion shadow, specially how spells work in voidform. how latency, lag spikes and gear are so big deal compared to other classes/specs.
if feels really underdeveloped - looks like they threw pile of disconnected spells together and then started fixing it.

[kail]

I much prefered the playstyle in Cata. Simple DoT maintenance with procs and buffs to manage, a spell to use on CD, and channel filler. Playing the spec now, VF alone keeps the 2 DoTs capped so it really is about jamming other spells on CD, getting 2-3 ticks of mind flay at most, and mastering GCDs to keep VF up as long as possible. Not my cup of tea...

I honestly like the concept and character effects of VF, but tbh I simply miss the shadow orbs (ravens).

[Kilee25]

I do not like the direction shadow has gone in. Like many people here, my most enjoyable play style was back in cataclysm.

I truly enjoyed CoP in WoD, but I didn't like what AS turned into and how that play style sort of won some kind of internal battle of choices. Playing CoP made me realize that I prefer single target dps. I feel that managing dots on more than 2 targets becomes a huge pain in the butt, and while I recognize that it takes a lot of skill to do it well, at the end of the day it just feels more like work than playing a game for fun.

That's really the bottom line for me, is that somewhere along the way shadow started feeling more like work and less like relaxing fun.

This ties into a larger complaint that I have about the game in general, which is basically the same thing. Whenever I play wow these days it just becomes a laundry list of chores and time sinks. I get bogged down doing repetitive quests, dungeons, raids, etc...

I ended up dropping the game this expansion, and the direction shadow took was a huge part of the reason why. Being forced into playing STM at the start left a bitter taste in my mouth. I realize that they're constantly tweaking the class and that it's better now, but that initial lack of choice was sort of a "last straw" for me.