Shadowlands Beta Build 36294 - Druid and Priest Class Changes

Shadowlands Beta - Druid Class Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Catching up here—I know you’ve seen some ongoing tuning to Covenant abilities on beta. One recent update that’s not as visible is that Convoke the Spirits will now try to use more consistent number of current-form abilities. There are exceptions–for example if no hostiles are in range, Convoke will use 12 friendly spells regardless of spec. But, on average, Convoke should much more consistently use 7-8 current-form spells.

Shadowlands Beta - Priest Class Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Greetings!

As some of you know, we’ve made adjustments to Shadow Priests lately to balance their damage, as heavy iteration on the specialization led to some things getting out of alignment. In this week’s new Beta build, we’ve made more adjustments.

At the same time, we saw that some of the Insanity reductions from last week hurt the flow of the rotation, so we’ve reverted some of those. We also want to make sure that Mind Blast feels important to use over Mind Flay.

This week’s changes include:

  • Dark Thought duration increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds).
    • Developers’ notes: We’ve also decreased Dark Thought’s max stacks to 1, as 5 felt excessive. We are open to feedback about how this feels, as always.
  • Mind Blast generates 8 Insanity (was 7).
  • Mind Flay damage reduced by 15%.
    • Developers’ notes: Shadow was proving too powerful in single target situations. This helps address that while still allowing Mind Blast to feel impactful.
  • Mind Sear damage reduced by 15%.
  • Devouring Plague initial hit reduced by 15%, and periodic damage reduced by ~12%.
  • Auspicious Spirits generates 2 Insanity (was 1). Damage reduced to 15% (was 30%).
    • Developers’ notes: This to differentiate it more from Psychic Link. Auspicious Spirits should be about getting more Devouring Plagues, while Psychic Link is better at spread damage.
  • Searing Nightmare once again costs 30 Insanity (was 35).
    • Developers’ notes: There is some gameplay value in getting 3 Searing Nightmares in a row when pooling Insanity, so we decided to revert this change.

Thank you for all of your testing and feedback.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Shadowlands Beta - Priest Class Changes started by Lumy View original post
Published on 2020-10-21 07:18 PM
41 Comments
Comments 41 Comments
  1. deenman's Avatar
    Personaly dont mind a few nerfs,as long as the class feels good it will be fine,also shadow hasnt been at the bottom since tbc so im not worried,but i do find it kinda funny how they said they want mind blast to feel desirable to press and they do that by nerfing mind flay lol,its like making my headache hurt less by breaking my bones
  1. jsnlxndrlv's Avatar
    Don't confuse a couple of strong Azerite armor effects with quality spec design. "Shadow performing extremely well in Legion/BfA" is a symptom of the problems we were having, the foremost of which is that the shadow play-style was turned into this high-risk, high-reward glass cannon. They were stuck in this impossible triangle:

    -Surrender to Madness and Voidform need to be strong to justify the instant-death effect of StM and the slow ramp-up as you build insanity to enter voidform.

    -When StM and Voidform are strong, the top players outperform everybody else.

    -If top players using StM and Voidform perform at a balanced level to other classes in progression content, then casual shadow priests are barely functional during voidform and completely useless outside of it of it.

    Voidform became this see-saw with progression players on one side and casual players on the other: anything they did to benefit one side caused caused problems because of the players on the other side. Ultimately, the only way they could fix this problem was to take most of shadow's power out of the see-saw altogether and put it elsewhere—and the place they put it was in the gear, in the form of Azerite powers, essences, and corruptions. This way shadow players still do their rotation and they still see significant improvement in their performance inside of voidform rather than outside of it, but the scale of this difference was far more dependent on how far you were through the gear progression than on your ability to perform during voidform. "If we can't make it fun, at least make it strong." That seems to have been the decision, and I'm glad we're seeing the end of that.
  1. majesta's Avatar
    Sigh. Was looking forward to playing my spriest. Shadowlands is looking like a catastrophic dumpster fire at this point.
  1. natham's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by majesta View Post
    Sigh. Was looking forward to playing my spriest. Shadowlands is looking like a catastrophic dumpster fire at this point.
    Why? Because few dmg balances on beta early on? Are you new or something?
  1. Eapoe's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Assumi View Post
    "Now that we've delayed the game because half the content is straight up broken should we spend the time fixing the Maw being a total empty wasteland time sink? Broken Legendaries? Terrible progression? Nah just nerf the only few specs that aren't shit."
    Except classes only feel shit because other classes are OP. Once the OP classes/specs are brought down a bit the other classes/specs aren’t shit but actually in line where Blizzard wants them.
    Also, Blizzard has nerfed and buffed legendaries multiple times.
    The Maw being empty? I don’t know what to say there, but I’m pretty sure there was a blue post about a week or 2 ago where they were looking into it.
    Progression? What does this even mean? Story? Gear? Those all seem to be pretty fleshed out.
    Guess what I’m stating is: Over dramatic unfounded post is over dramatic and unfounded.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by majesta View Post
    Sigh. Was looking forward to playing my spriest. Shadowlands is looking like a catastrophic dumpster fire at this point.
    And you can still do just that. Did this round of nerfs somehow make the OP spec of the xpac so far complete dumpster fire or something.”? Think I’ll wait to hear from the testers, rather than a knee jerk reaction on mmo-c, to get updated about that.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by deenman View Post
    Personaly dont mind a few nerfs,as long as the class feels good it will be fine,also shadow hasnt been at the bottom since tbc so im not worried,but i do find it kinda funny how they said they want mind blast to feel desirable to press and they do that by nerfing mind flay lol,its like making my headache hurt less by breaking my bones
    Isn’t that part of how you do that though? If MB feels bad to press because it’s underpowered compared to an OP ability, do you throw balance even more off by making the 2nd OP as well, or do you bring the OP ability down a bit to make the other one feel correct to use?
    I think the point is that if you have MB off CD, people weren’t using it because MF was much stronger to keep channeling instead of interrupting it to use MB.
  1. Kaver's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lucetia View Post
    I think it depends on the content. I know I did low level M+'s on it as I did higher ones on my tank main. At lower M+'s they seemed really weak, but as you got higher they did better since stuff would stay up long enough to tick. I'm guessing things like that is what they are complaining about? Though not sure.
    But they have already fixed that right? Shadow Priest’s ramp up time is much faster now. And tuning number wont change that fact.

    I just know that in Mythic raiding and high end M+, Shadow Priest have been in the top for all seasons in BFA. So it has definitely not been weak. Now I do understand that not all players do high end content, but when measuring performance I think it’s the only content that really matters.. in my opinion.

    Anyway, they fixed the ramp up time so now Shadow Priest can do the best of all worlds: Single target damage, Cleave, AoE, Spread AoE, Multi-dotting, bursting, sustained damage.. you name it. They can do it all now. So now people can definitely not complain that Shadow Priest will be weak after a small nerf.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by majesta View Post
    Sigh. Was looking forward to playing my spriest. Shadowlands is looking like a catastrophic dumpster fire at this point.
    What are you talking about. Shadow Priest can do everything in terms of dps in Shadowlands. It literally has no downsides. You can burst, you can dot, you can cleave, you can leave combat and still do dps, you can AoE with no target cap... some tuning of numbers wont change the mechanics of the spec. The downside of Shadow Priest in BFA was the slow ramp up time but they have removed that in Shadowlands.. so there is no downside. Stop the drama and just play the spec. It WILL be great.
  1. Nite92's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by muto View Post
    No they didn’t. Priests were very strong in 3 tiers (BoD, EP, Nyalotha) this expansion as well as M+. They were also by far the strongest dps in Emerald Nightmare. The only reason Priests are getting changes is because they conceded they can’t balance Voidform with no cd.
    No. Dps =/= good. Having 0 control over when you do alot of dmg and don't do dmg does not work well in raids, it just produces decent numbers, and in m+ they had literally 0 utility and did not even good dmg.
  1. Alanar's Avatar
    Not realy about numbers for me persee.. but the one thing that made it for me is that shadow finally has some decent selfsustain. The gameplay is just better.
  1. Kaver's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Laqweeta View Post
    Why don't people realize that because a TON of damage was tied to Voidform, it suffered? Priests performed well in high M+ and raids, but THAT'S IT - Open world content? Nope. PvP? haha. Use your brain people.
    That’s it? That’s all that matters mate. Shadow priest has been excellent in high end M+, raiding and arena. This is the only content where performance really matters. Who cares about open world content.. the mobs are dying like flies anyway so what does it matter if you kill a mob in 2 or 3 seconds.

    But anyway, Blizzard fixed that so now Shadow Priest is ALSO a burst spec. You can do everything now so there is definitely no reason to complain just because of some tuning.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Nite92 View Post
    No. Dps =/= good. Having 0 control over when you do alot of dmg and don't do dmg does not work well in raids, it just produces decent numbers, and in m+ they had literally 0 utility and did not even good dmg.
    Shadow Priest did great damage in M+. Unless the mobs were dying in 5 seconds of course. But if mobs are dying in 5 seconds then it just means you’re doing piss easy content and performance doesn’t really matter anyway.
  1. jk1895's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Onikaroshi View Post
    so it's obvious that shadowlands isn't coming this year.
    This is bullshit. It is coming this year.
  1. VladimirM's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Treeskee View Post
    While I haven't been following class balance or much of Shadowlands really since balance is constantly changing. Just remember! If all specs are shit, none are.
    adding 1 instanity is ~15% buff
  1. javierdsv's Avatar
    RIP Shadow Priest.
  1. natham's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by javierdsv View Post
    RIP Shadow Priest.
    Not even close.
  1. deenman's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eapoe View Post
    Except classes only feel shit because other classes are OP. Once the OP classes/specs are brought down a bit the other classes/specs aren’t shit but actually in line where Blizzard wants them.
    Also, Blizzard has nerfed and buffed legendaries multiple times.
    The Maw being empty? I don’t know what to say there, but I’m pretty sure there was a blue post about a week or 2 ago where they were looking into it.
    Progression? What does this even mean? Story? Gear? Those all seem to be pretty fleshed out.
    Guess what I’m stating is: Over dramatic unfounded post is over dramatic and unfounded.

    - - - Updated - - -



    And you can still do just that. Did this round of nerfs somehow make the OP spec of the xpac so far complete dumpster fire or something.”? Think I’ll wait to hear from the testers, rather than a knee jerk reaction on mmo-c, to get updated about that.

    - - - Updated - - -



    Isn’t that part of how you do that though? If MB feels bad to press because it’s underpowered compared to an OP ability, do you throw balance even more off by making the 2nd OP as well, or do you bring the OP ability down a bit to make the other one feel correct to use?
    I think the point is that if you have MB off CD, people weren’t using it because MF was much stronger to keep channeling instead of interrupting it to use MB.
    shifting the power around,take dmg from one and put in the other,giving mind blast 1 extra insanity isnt enough
  1. Eapoe's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by deenman View Post
    shifting the power around,take dmg from one and put in the other,giving mind blast 1 extra insanity isnt enough
    Enough of a nerf? I don’t understand what you mean.
  1. Alanar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by muto View Post
    No they didn’t. Priests were very strong in 3 tiers (BoD, EP, Nyalotha) this expansion as well as M+. They were also by far the strongest dps in Emerald Nightmare. The only reason Priests are getting changes is because they conceded they can’t balance Voidform with no cd.
    There is more to wow then just raiding...
    Sure shadow was good, but shit at everything else.

    I dont play my shadow to raid so I dont care about that.
  1. deenman's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eapoe View Post
    Enough of a nerf? I don’t understand what you mean.
    enough of a buff to mindblast
  1. Baneto's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by jk1895 View Post
    This is bullshit. It is coming this year.
    That is exactly what people said about the 27th October release-date too.
  1. oderon's Avatar
    I wonder if those changes also affect Disc.
    Now that some skills are shared by all specs, changing skills due to balancing for 1 spec also affects other specs.
    And since Disc healing depends on damage...
  1. Rowin's Avatar
    Why do you keep ignoring resto? I know you're happy with it, but we are not. Once again relegated to S-Class and moving further down the rankings. Make our over-healing more useful as all the other classes can easily make our hots irrelevant. You buffed holy priest again and I see you're working to make hpally better as well...while we get pushed down the ranks again
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