Shadow Priest Changes in Patch 8.1

Originally Posted by The-Shan

Feels like a healing a severed arm with a single bandaid, but ok. The entire spec needs a redesign from the ground up.

Respectfully disagree. The voidform changes were really what broke spriests compared to Legion - and I think most people considered Legion spriest to be one of the better iterations of the spec. This is a welcome change and while I'd still like to see more, it's a good start.

I dunno I would like an option for more damage period, at the cost of a diminished or outright removed void form. But what really needs to happen is Shadow Word: Death being baseline, and maybe even Void Torrent, if no option on better outright damage sans void form.

It's.... a step. Though I wish they would pay more attention to the rotation like void bolt and mind blast hitting cooldown at the same time, or having it hit during GCD. Just a few tweaks would make it great. Asking for a lot I suppose. I use Mania, I find it far more useful during certain fights like Mother where it lasts longer than Body and Soul. Interesting to see mobility sacrificed for a survival talent.

Originally Posted by Dastreus

I dunno I would like an option for more damage period, at the cost of a diminished or outright removed void form. But what really needs to happen is Shadow Word: Death being baseline, and maybe even Void Torrent, if no option on better outright damage sans void form.

Yup. I wish they had removed Void Form, personally. I really kind of hate it.

Wow, they really didn't give us swd back. I was joking when i told my friends i bet they just bump the numbers a bit

A step in the right direction for sure. Being in Void Form needs to feel rewarding, as does keeping high stacks.

I wonder if they would ever consider a new version of Mind Flay while in Void Form, perhaps something that can be cast while moving, so we're not so gimped on heavy movement fights? With so much damage being baked into Void Form it's really frustrating to lose a bunch of stacks due to unavoidable mechanics. Wishful thinking I suppose.

Now they just need to give the talents a look-over. SWD really should be baseline and I think Surrender to Madness has outlived it's memehood.

These buffs/changes should increase damage, yeah, but they do nothing to make the spec actually more fun or interesting to play.

Is this an improvement? For sure. It's underwhelming though. It's literally just numbers tuning.

This is very disappointing, and this means that we will have to wait yet another expansion for meaningful changes to shadow. This flat out buff will placate some people for a minute, but this is very disappointing and lazy.

First Elemental and now this... I'd be amazed if more than one trainee worked on these 8.1 "reworks".

Originally Posted by Krimsonmyst

Respectfully disagree. The voidform changes were really what broke spriests compared to Legion - and I think most people considered Legion spriest to be one of the better iterations of the spec. This is a welcome change and while I'd still like to see more, it's a good start.

Legion s. priest was still disastrously bad in any form of content outside (most) raid bosses. Incidentally, I had the pleasure of doing several 20+ keys with the world number 1 shadow priest in Legion. The guy was amazing, and his damage output was amazing, but if you compared what he could do to, say, any world top 100 of the better m+ specs, it was no comparison. Add on to that the fact that he brought almost no significant utility and you had a world-class player that any sane competitive m+ group leader would never, ever take over a mage/hunter/lock/boomkin.

Legion s. priest was train wreck. BfA shadow priest is just a train wreck carrying manure and explosives - it doesn't make Legion s. priest a good spec. I completely agree with others that shadow needs a ground-up rework to give it more frontloaded damage and more utility.

We simply don't play a game where ramp DPS specs are a viable form of gameplay anymore. They will always be undesirable for m+ and PvP, and if you reward their ramp up, they will always be OP in raids.

This does not look good. Still waiting for enhanc shaman changes and after seeing this, I'm afraid it's going to be numbers only as well. God damn these indie companies...

As could be expected, just numbers changes and nothing to deal with the fundamental issues of the spec. Disappointing nonetheless.

All the hoo-ha about leaving Shadow getting sorted for 8.1, and it's just number tweaks no different to hotfix balancing they typically do throughout... what a fucking joke.

Originally Posted by chaud

Shadow Priest Changes in Patch 8.1

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The next PTR build includes some changes to Shadow Priest with the following goals:

• Make Voidform matter more, make staying in Voidform longer matter more, and give the player more agency over extending its duration
• Improve Shadow’s defensive power and utility

Make Voidform Matter More
Moving into Battle for Azeroth, we consciously reduced the maximum power of Voidforms, for the purpose of evening out Shadow’s heavily backloaded Voidform cycle damage. This had some positive impacts, which many of you are aware of – mainly this greatly reduced the harsh penalty for dropping out of Voidform early – a common occurrence in any content outside of raids, including dungeons or questing. That said, we think we went a little too far with peeling power off of Voidform, which has resulted in Voidform not feeling impactful enough, and with not enough reason to work to extend it. We are easing this change back a bit:

• Voidform increases spell damage by 20% (up from 10%)
• Insanity drain increase per second in Voidform reduced by 15%
• Void Bolt Insanity generation increased by 25%

Dispersion
Dispersion’s damage reduction has been increased to 75% (up from 60%). We agree that because it comes with the penalty of not being able to cast spells, it deserves to be stronger. Additionally, it now increases movement speed by 50%.

A new talent Intangibility replaces Mania (which was similar to and far less popular than Body and Soul), and reduces Dispersion’s cooldown by 25% and causes it to heal you for 50% of your maximum health over its duration.

Shadowform’s Physical Damage Reduction
Shadowform's 10% physical damage reduction was intended to feel like a bonus to Shadowform, but instead felt like a penalty to Voidform, since you lose that defensive benefit going into Voidform.

We’re replacing this bonus from Shadowform with the Focused Will passive (which the other two Priest specs already have), causing melee abilities and attacks to reduce all damage taken by 15% for 8 sec.

Hallucinations
Hallucinations (the PvP talent) is becoming a baseline passive, and allows your successful Dispel Magic, Mass Dispel, Purify Disease, Vampiric Embrace, and Power Word: Shield casts to generate 6 Insanity (same amount per cast as your filler, Mind Flay).

This give you more freedom to use your on-global cooldown utility buttons, especially in Voidform, without incurring as much damage loss, since Insanity is constantly draining.

Other talent adjustments worth mentioning:

• Mind Bomb and Psychic Scream now take 40% longer to break from damage.
• Void Torrent generates 30 Insanity over its duration and deals 20% increased damage. Additionally, no longer requires Voidform to cast, so you can choose to use it on a priority damage target at any time.
• Lingering Insanity fades every 3 sec instead of every 2 sec.
• Surrender to Madness cooldown reduced by 33% and penalty duration reduced by 50%.

A+ class rework

/s

Okay...I don't mean to sound like an ingrate, but any other spriest extremely disappointed by this?

The class just feels bad right now. You can't really stay in voidform for long, and the frantic fun of holding voidform in Legion is nonexistent, as well as the enjoyment of the multidotting gradual damage spec a lot of people miss still being absent. This is just covering a pile of shit with a nice coat of paint. I don't care if my DPS is high, the class still isn't going to feel right.

I like the changes, don't get me wrong, but they're really not going to fix how bad the class feels to play right now.

Originally Posted by Irian

Okay...I don't mean to sound like an ingrate, but any other spriest extremely disappointed by this?

No that's perfect. I mean, we lacked survivability and movement, so their solution was to put Legion's Dispersion artifact passive into a talent which they place into the movement's row (which is now, ironically, only containing one movement buff).

Makes 100% sense. Now we have the choice, either we survive, or we move approximately faster. But never both.

Not really rework... some numbers tuning here and there.

SWD should be baseline and give us Spectral Guise back

Originally Posted by Krimsonmyst

Respectfully disagree. The voidform changes were really what broke spriests compared to Legion - and I think most people considered Legion spriest to be one of the better iterations of the spec. This is a welcome change and while I'd still like to see more, it's a good start.

just bring back cataclysm firelands Shadowpriest best spec ever

Warlock changes maybe if you have the time Blizzard?