Post Mortem: Priest Legion Experience

[Deleted]

Hi Everyone,

To give you a little idea of what I mean with this thread I will start of with my own story (I'll keep it brief).
I play in a guild that have existed since before WoW launched, myself joined in Cataclysm and it is led by my wife. We are all at this point in some form IRL friends, and we know each other pretty closely, we are also vehemently against pugging and don't really look to grow. We have our 10-15 ppl team and we all have jobs and kids, well most of us so we raid Normal/Heroic and are content with that. We always collect our curve and go into hibernation unless someone is rerolling or similar until next tier. Most of us have played in competitive guilds at some point, either on the server or world level. Needless to say we are a bunch that are competitive amongst each other and being anywhere below first on the healing/damage meters means you're shit (in a joking way). We do a lot of the 5man challenging content (did the challenge mode's in MOP, WOD, pushing higher keys in Legion) and find it hell-of-a-good-time.

Legion started and I decided for the 3rd expansion to raid on my Priest as healer since we needed to fill the healing slot. I was excited for Holy and loved it, all the way to Ursoc Heroic.. I think it was at this point that the cracks started to show for me at least and I only grew more sour with each tiers release.
Now it might be interesting for you to know we have basically 2 healed the entire expansion, I think that is normal for our raid size, and we have had me as the raid healer and a Holy Paladin for the other slot which have worked "ok".


Personally I feel Holy Priest never got the identity the other specs/classes in the game got. They are left somewhere in a spot like jack of all trade, master of none and are out performed by Holy Paladins in every single regard, at some point in ToS I changed to my mage and let my wife take over with her resto druid because we knew it was more effective to have this combo than keep the priest.
So let me break down what I think about the priest class for Legion and if there aren't major changes going into BfA then I think it will stay on the shelf, maybe you can change my mind and get me to continue on my main.. In fact that is what I hope for

World Content
This isn't particularly related to playing Holy/Disc but as Shadow I suppose.

• Slow Kill rate on monsters compared to other classes.
• Pathetic AoE for clearing World Quests (Especially the Dino Quests).
• Not better at kiting, nuking, sustaining or soaking damage than any other class on their own.

Mythic+ and Raid

• Absolute misery in Halls of Valour on higher Key's (I hate this place with the one-shot monsters).
• Do not bring anything special to the group.
• Other classes have more or stronger cooldowns (or with shorter cd's).
• We don't have higher throughput.
• Can't cast on the run.
• Have no Major mobility or AOE mobility.
• AOE Healing is very strong IF people are stacked up which isn't always possible/ideal

Tl:dr I love my priest but I feel utterly penalised for playing it, at every turn of the game, and if it's the same in next expansion I think another class might be for me unless someone can change my mind

[Deleted]

Shadow Priest:

WQ: Terrible. Even with with high ilvl I run into gameplay issues, like having to individualy cast dots on each target that normally dies to single aoe.
Dungeons: Terrible. From low VF uptime to having dots with cast time along with low utility and survivability. Priests are singlehandely worst M+ class.
Raids: Alright. As always council type of fights are our best.
PVP: Target Dummy.
Aestethics: Old shadowform was better, especially one that didn't require constant recasting. Current one looks awful when looking at flat areas.

Holy Priest:

WQ: Actually better than Shadow. Self-healing + holy nova was much better experience despite lacking ST damage. Always group up for elites anyway.
Dungeons: Alright. Running into issues at higher keys due to low mobility and survivability.
Raids: Very pleasurable experience. Sometimes running into issues in phases with simultaneous heavy dmg + movement requirements.
PVP: Quite fun actually.
Aesthetics: Wings are meh. I dislike naaru theme, feels too alliance centred.

Discipline Priest:

WQ: Ezy pzy, albeit little slow, even with multi-dot.
Dungeons: Mana issues, but other than that very pleasant experience. Suffers from same issues as holy.
Raids: Fun, but very hectic and requires coordination from the team.
PVP: YOLO. (10/10)

[ttylol]

Shadow PVE: requires more effort for no substantial gain (post-S2M ofc)
Disc PVE: requires more effort for no substantial gain
Holy PVE: got the short end of the stick

safe to say the grass really was greener?

[Ynna]

Background
I came back to WoW by the time Tomb of Sargeras started and by the time I was raid-ready, my guild was pretty far into Tomb on Heroic, or something. So my raiding experience is somewhat limited this expansion, having mostly done Tomb on Normal and now progressing slowly on Antorus Mythic. I've always been a Holy Priest and continue to be one, although I've recently started learning Discipline a bit better.

Holy

World Quests:

Questing in general is pretty enjoyable as Holy. Things don't die instantly, but they die quickly enough and there are pretty much no situations you can't handle. AoE-wise, Holy is pretty great. The Snowfeather-quests are a breeze, which is nice.

[b]Dungeons[b]

They're alright, I guess. I feel like we can manage most situations, but we noticeably suffer when we need to move a lot. Depending on what affixes there are, this weakness doesn't matter too much or can make me want to skip the week altogether.

Raids

Pretty fun, all things considered. We continue to have plenty of tools for each situations and our mobility issues don't matter as much since with some planning or help from the other healers, you can mitigate them. On fights with extreme movement requirements, I find playing Holy very discouraging, but they are few and far between. I like that we can get these massive bursts of throughput when we need them, even without needing to pop our major raid cooldown.

[b]PvP[b]

I barely PvP, but whenever the weekly is PvP-related, I have quite a bit of fun as Holy. In Battlegrounds the spec is very fun, and I do think we have enough tools for Arena, although your entire build needs to be dedicated to massively improving your mobility for it to work.

[b]Aesthetics[b]

I've always liked the light blue, gold and white of our spec and this theme continued. Our new spell animations look great and make us look like powerful wielders of Holy energy. Our artifact weapon might be a bit too connected to the Na'aru for my liking, but I admit this is personal. I've always liked to headcanon my Priests as someone who saw the Light as a more vague force of good and being this strongly connected to a specific Na'aru sorta messes with that. I do understand the choice and at least it's better than Discipline's weapon.

Overall spec design

All-in-all I find our spec kinda dull at the moment. We're good at everything, but in being that, we lose our own identity a bit. Holy Priests certainly aren't bad. They're pretty great healers, but they just don't stand out too much. No-one regrets having a Holy Priest on their team, but no-one is really excited to see them either.

Apart from group viability, the Holy playstyle is a bit boring as well. Our signature spells (the Holy Words) are just efficient instant heals you want to use on cooldown. By tying so much of the spec's identity to those Holy Words, they lose their uniqueness, since you really want to cast them every time they're available instead of timing them just right for the best situations. You need to keep them on cooldown, because they buff your healing, buff specific spells, do a nice bit of healing when they come of cooldown, etc. Our artifact weapon contributes to this heavily, on top of it's "signature stuff" (Invoke the Naaru and Light of T'uure) being pretty bland as well.

I also want to briefly touch on Renew, which is barely worth casting to the point that we could probably get rid of it right now. Its only redeeming feature is being usable on the move, and that's only relevant because we have very few other tools for that.

I want to keep my complaining about specific spells and talents to a minimum, but I do hope they take a good look at those things in the next expansion. One major gripe I have is our last tier of talents, so I'll go over that quickly. Apotheosis is absolutely great. People wanted a Holy Form since forever and this is a good way to handle it. It's powerful without being overly so and I love casting it. (Nitpick: the movement animation sorta looks like you [i]could[/] cast stuff while moving and its disappointed that we can't, but I understand why that's the case.) I do regret that it's competing with the "mandatory-for-raiding" talent Benediction which is boring as hell. Like, easily the single dullest talent we have. I know that it pulls good numbers, but I don't care. It's a boring talent that has absolutely no business competing with two (theoretically) cool as hell talents. Because Circle of Healing could theoretically be really cool. It's a signature Holy spell and is instant cast (helping us mitigate a major weakness). But the numbers just aren't there and it doesn't synergize with the rest of our (Holy Word-based) playstyle at all. It's a shame, really.

In conclusion: Holy is fine, just a bit boring.

[MendUS]

Disc PVE: requires more effort for no substantial gain

Yeah if you don't consider great performance, added mitigation, and added DPS to your raid substantial, then I guess you're correct.

[Deleted]

In LEgion I play Holy only, so...

Nice improvements compared to previous expansions: love the new Holy Words system! The only thing I did not like is that we lack utility compared to other healers and DIVINE HYMN IS STILL A CHANNEL YOU CANNOT USE WHILE MOVING.

Also, I think we had too much RNG (artifact proc)

[Currently Retired]

In LEgion I play Holy only, so...

Nice improvements compared to previous expansions: love the new Holy Words system! The only thing I did not like is that we lack utility compared to other healers and DIVINE HYMN IS STILL A CHANNEL YOU CANNOT USE WHILE MOVING.

Also, I think we had too much RNG (artifact proc)

The only problems I encountered with Holy Priest are the lack of mobility, compared to the other healers, and the RNG artifact. The naaru we spawn is quite strong, when it actually spawns.. But I feel like if Divine Hymn could be channeled while moving, it would put Holy Priest way too high. The added % bonus healing received it gives to everyone in the raid sort of counters the mobility.

But in dungeons and WQs, Holy Nova is amazing.

[Zensunni]

The only problems I encountered with Holy Priest are the lack of mobility, compared to the other healers, and the RNG artifact. The naaru we spawn is quite strong, when it actually spawns.. But I feel like if Divine Hymn could be channeled while moving, it would put Holy Priest way too high. The added % bonus healing received it gives to everyone in the raid sort of counters the mobility.

But in dungeons and WQs, Holy Nova is amazing.

My good friend mains shadow and I've played side-by-side with him through most of the xpac. He's a highly skilled player, has raided mythic each tier, and is (for example) right now pushing about 2600 on wowprogress for m+.

Shadow was, by far and away, the worst DPS spec overall for Legion. Aside from the meme nonsense of StM in EN, the spec hasn't had much going for it relative to other classes, and for m+ it's just awful.

Personally, I think the game design of WoW has gotten to a place where ramp up specs simply need re-working, as thy are almost always in a situation where another, non rampy spec, will outperform them in addition to having much higher QoL.

[Currently Retired]

My good friend mains shadow and I've played side-by-side with him through most of the xpac. He's a highly skilled player, has raided mythic each tier, and is (for example) right now pushing about 2600 on wowprogress for m+.

Shadow was, by far and away, the worst DPS spec overall for Legion. Aside from the meme nonsense of StM in EN, the spec hasn't had much going for it relative to other classes, and for m+ it's just awful.

Personally, I think the game design of WoW has gotten to a place where ramp up specs simply need re-working, as thy are almost always in a situation where another, non rampy spec, will outperform them in addition to having much higher QoL.

One of the reasons I do everything as Holy is because Shadow is so ...meh. The AOE is so unreliable, only the single-target damage sort of works. And yeah, the memefest that S2M is actually goes to be the only "fun" or "unique" thing about Shadow.

Priest overall has been pretty poor compared to the other classes.

[Venara]

A few specific responses to issues you mentioned:

- I main Holy and only do Shadow for questing. I have 950+ ivl and I don't have any issues with kill speed? Everything dies pretty quickly and I can dot everything in sight. This might be a gear issue if you feel slow?
- I agree on Shadow AoE but I just spec Holy and Holy Nova everything. Works especially well for the Dino Quests you're referring to.
- HoV is a group effort, just like any Mythic+. Yes the one-shot stuff isn't fun, but it affects other people the same as it affects priests. You simply work as a group to counteract it with CC, stuns, etc.
- I agree that priests currently bring very little, if anything, unique that I can think off.
- @Cooldowns: This one sounds a lot like cooldown envy to be honest. Do we have the best cooldowns in the game? When S2M was a thing, everybody else argued that yes, we do. Realistically this comes back to what I said above - someone always comes out on top. Would I like better/stronger cooldowns? Yes. Is it absolutely necessary to be competitive with other DDs/Healers? Probably not.

I'm gonna cut the rest short into this:

Most of your perceived issues seem to be issues of "We're not #1 DD/Healer but I think we should be". There's never a situation where every spec is the best at something. Do you really want Blizzard to go "You're the best at kiting", "You're the best at nuking", etc., and the other 30+ specs in the game go "And what about us?". It doesn't work that way. Somebody will always come out on top and priests really weren't doing too bad this expansion.

[Jervaise]

A few specific responses to issues you mentioned:

- I main Holy and only do Shadow for questing. I have 950+ ivl and I don't have any issues with kill speed? Everything dies pretty quickly and I can dot everything in sight. This might be a gear issue if you feel slow?
- I agree on Shadow AoE but I just spec Holy and Holy Nova everything. Works especially well for the Dino Quests you're referring to.
- HoV is a group effort, just like any Mythic+. Yes the one-shot stuff isn't fun, but it affects other people the same as it affects priests. You simply work as a group to counteract it with CC, stuns, etc.
- I agree that priests currently bring very little, if anything, unique that I can think off.
- @Cooldowns: This one sounds a lot like cooldown envy to be honest. Do we have the best cooldowns in the game? When S2M was a thing, everybody else argued that yes, we do. Realistically this comes back to what I said above - someone always comes out on top. Would I like better/stronger cooldowns? Yes. Is it absolutely necessary to be competitive with other DDs/Healers? Probably not.

I'm gonna cut the rest short into this:

Most of your perceived issues seem to be issues of "We're not #1 DD/Healer but I think we should be". There's never a situation where every spec is the best at something. Do you really want Blizzard to go "You're the best at kiting", "You're the best at nuking", etc., and the other 30+ specs in the game go "And what about us?". It doesn't work that way. Somebody will always come out on top and priests really weren't doing too bad this expansion.

I will disagree with you there about cooldowns. There are multiple occasions in a raid where you have to focus your damage to a specific target at a specific time. We have no control over this. At 35-40 stacks when that target is called for? Yes, damage will be high, but GL with shadowfiend running towards it in time - causing you to drop. Just finished 1min rotation when it's called? GG.

I just want a button to boost my damage at a certain point in time while not gimping my entire fight's duration of playstyle and damage.

Edit: And no PI is not this. Bender or PI is a part of your rotation if you want to do acceptable damage at the entirety of an encounter.

[Ophenia]

Most of your perceived issues seem to be issues of "We're not #1 DD/Healer but I think we should be". There's never a situation where every spec is the best at something. Do you really want Blizzard to go "You're the best at kiting", "You're the best at nuking", etc., and the other 30+ specs in the game go "And what about us?". It doesn't work that way. Somebody will always come out on top and priests really weren't doing too bad this expansion.

Nobody is talking about being the best or number 1 at anything. Shadow Priests were never the best at anything, but it was good at many things before and had some kind of uniqueness.

Now there are 2 things to take into account :

- NUMBERS :
Shadow Priests, to deal acceptable damage, need a 40+ seconds rampup. That could be fine if, after these 40 seconds rampup, SP dealt stupid damage for like 10-15 seconds. They don't, they start dealing normal - slightly beyond the top damage at this point, unless there are 2-3 targets. The worst part being that the smallest GCD you waste during this rampup (may it be to soak something, enemy moving out of range, a stun/silence) completely negates your DPS for a whole minute, because you're simply not functional without Void Torrent, Mindbender and 40 stacks.
Plus, you need a shitload of RNG for that cycle to be optimal. Tentacles (which will disappear in BfA) and Shadowy Apparitions at the right time are one of the reasons you'll be dealing DPS or hitting like a wet noodle.

To summarize, Shadow Priests in raids are a Very high risk - small reward class. What we're expecting is that, if we execute our cycle perfectly, we are rewarded accordingly.
That's not acceptable that a 50+stacks Shadow Priest deals the same amount of damage as any "click on shiny spells" classes do at any time.

And the main problem every one here is talking about :

- EXCITEMENT :
Nobody here likes to play Shadow. That's a boring spec. That's it.
The only moment I enjoy my SP is in Fortified dungeons when packs are taking time to die. That never happens, either because there is literally any other class in the group, or because this is a +25 key in which a Shadow Priest will never get invited anyway.

[davesignal]

Legion Shadow was so awful I finally quit my main of nearly a decade to play an arcane mage, not the least of which due to the immense shooting pain in my wrist I suffered trying to play this fucking travesty of a spec at full speed.

That's my Shadow post mortem: so poorly designed it actually legitimately injured me.

[Venara]

@Ophenia @Jervaise

I'm kind of responding from a Holy/Disc/Shadow combined perspective, not just Shadow. Perhaps I should have broken it down to avoid confusion. I don't disagree with you about Shadow specifically but the thread is a general postmortem and I would argue that Holy/Disc cooldowns and/or performance are on par with other healing specs.

Also, I believe the OP is very much touching on the "We're not the best at anything" issue in these statements:

Not better at kiting, nuking, sustaining or soaking damage than any other class on their own.

Other classes have more or stronger cooldowns (or with shorter cd's).

We don't have higher throughput.

I love my priest but I feel utterly penalised for playing it, at every turn of the game

Ultimately this does come down to the question: So where do you want priest to be? Will you be happy only if priest ends up in the top spot? Top 3? 5? 10?

I think that is a valid question to ask given these statements and given the fact that there are so many different classes and specs in the game. Someone will always be at the top, middle, bottom. Maybe Shadow is at the bottom right now? I don't think it is and certainly the statistics don't support that statement (https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist.../#difficulty=4).

Again, I'm not arguing that having that massive ramp sucks, that playing the spec doesn't feel great or that Shadow doesn't have a method to deal controlled burst to priority targets, but then let's really call out the issues by name. The OP did not do that and it was him I was responding too ;-)

[Danner]

Okay, let's talk Holy Abilities then


What works:

• Serendipity: The spec defining feature. I think it works incredibly well. The feeling of having something you build up towards, even if you're just whack-a-mole healing/smiting is extremely enticing. It gives that positive feedback feeling, that you're just not burning mana. You're also advancing towards something awesome. It's exactly like solving two quests in one mob kill.
• HW:Serenity: This cooldown is incredibly strong and instant, arguably to the point where I think it carries the spec. The impact this spell alone makes is easily covering for not having a combat ress in my opinion; when playing disc I can't help think I am missing this clutch heal. I do worry about this cooldown getting the T90 treatment in BFA - rendered weak to the point of pointlessness. Take it away, and I would feel like a paladin without beacon.
• HW:Sanctify: This cooldown is not as OP as Serenity, but still very good. Any healer would be happy to have this spell, as am I.
• Apotheosis Talent: One word: shiny. I also forget to use it a lot. But man - shiny. Gotta love shiny. It's actually also very good, which helps. But I'll take the shiny any day.
• Improved Death and X'anshi: I have spent many expansions complaining about improved death being sucky. The only thing holypriests were good at being able to die better. Come legion, holypriests got X'anshi, Shroud of Achbishop Benedictus. I never looked back. A 10min ankh? Hell yes! That's like stealing the best part of being a shaman, and gaining a free half-minute of nonstop mega-healing while doing it. Legion never needed to do anything else, it'll still be the best expansion for this reason alone.
• Smite, Holy Fire and HW:Chastise: The damage from Chastise is prime, and instant. This spell is a large part of what makes questing bearable as holy - the other part is that smite/holyfire actually being rather powerful these days. I also hear Chastise also applies some debuff, but who cares about such unfounded rumors. As far as DPS rotations go, it's simple and relatively gimmickless (the one exception being holy fire resets) and that's all you really want as a mainspec healer. I also really enjoy its nonexistent ramp-up time. Thumbs up.
• Holy Nova: When shadowpriests are getting envious of holy, you know it's good. And honestly, it is. I saw a video ranking holy as the 9th best grinding spec, due to this spell's existence alone. I especially love the aspect of having to run into melee combat, a place where you desperately do not want to be, to use it. It's a clever little bugger, this spell.
• Flash Heal: It's really the bread-and-butter healing spell of a priest, it's the first heal we learn, and still a powerhouse in the lategame. The eternal trouble is how to balance such a spell - it needs to be powerful enough to do the job, but its simplicity means it will make more complex solutions redundant. Historically balance has been done through mana, but all content has been balanced around constant spamming of at least this level of throughput. I like to think Legion hit a balance. I can spam the spell for a long time, and I have to to heal content. I just can't spam it forever. I do however wonder if there is a better way to balance such a spell. That said, I'll take this solution and not complain.

What doesn't work:

• Heal: Given the nature of Flash Heal balance, Heal is by necessity the weaker sibling that nobody really talks about. And it shows. The spell is when fume mode has set in. Which happens when something has gone irreparably wrong. If I am forced to use this spell, I am no longer remotely carrying my weight. I am instead relying on my peers to cover for me, while I am going into a slightly more active version of sitting around and waiting for mana regen. This playstyle wasn't good design back in Vanilla, and it still isn't. The holy trinity is simply bad healing game design, and this spell is a legacy of that idea.
• Censure Talent: I'm honestly still not sure if the debuff on HW:Chastise actually works as intended. I've been trained for several expansions to expect that everything and their sickly grandmother was immune to the disorient this spell applies, that I still assume everything except critters is gonna be immune to it. This isn't true, and hasn't been since WoD launched - but I feel it is true. If I need an interrupt as holy, it's my blood elf racial that's my go-to answer; my spec don't have an interrupt beyond that does it O.o ? While I keep being positively surprised, that stigma has been set forever. For this reason, I cannot possibly imagine ever picking up the Censure talent. Yes, I realize it is a PVP talent. But it feels wrong to have a PVP only talent around in my talent trees. In Legion, I will take Afterlife 10 times out of 10, even in PVP. It's just too weak for PVE.
• Circle of Healing Talent: Look, I get it. Blizzard don't want me to take the Circle. Which is why it was placed inbetween two far superior choices in the 110 row. The talent is exclusively there to shut up the players who miss the old spell, myself included. This talent is simply a long-con to remove the spell with less shitfest drama. But the talent isn't even the spell I miss. The spell I miss could be controlled as to who you targetted. This spell... is like that candy you used to enjoy as a kid, now sold in a far smaller package at a far higher price, using very different imitation ingredients. I am rather surprised to see it in the BFA talent trees at all, I figured this spell was slated for termination.
• Renew: So, it's got the same cost as Flash Heal. It's heals for less, over a longer period of time. It has no Serendipity synergy. It doesn't proc Trail of Light. It renders any mastery stat useless. On the upside it is instant, so it can be used while moving. But so is Surge of Light, Light of Tuure, Holy words, guardian spirit, desperate prayer and Body and Mind; all superior options. If you need to heal someone so immediately that you can't wait until you're done moving, and all those other spells are on cooldown, a renew still won't cut it because it is a heal over time. There is literally nothing good about this spell in Legion. Well, apart from free Renews from the Benediction talent. The main use I have for this spell is to mass-tag other players so I share their kills in world quests. The game thinks I have helped them enough to warrant sharing credits and rewards. But I know I'm just leeching - renew doesn't actually help them.
• Leap of Faith: I love this spell. But it's not a tool. It's a toy. It seems that whenever Blizzard want to make some talent, set bonus or similar, they go looking at the spec-unique spell selection. And for holy, that's where they'll find the holy words (already powerful enough), and... lifegrip. So now I, quite involuntarily, have several artifact relics increasing my lifegrip bonus heal. I wish Blizzard equated this spell with Underwater Breathing and Mind Vision. Just say no to another expansion adding "bonuses" to useless stuff.
• Shackle Undead: Was this even used in the entire expansion? You could remove it tomorrow and I wouldn't notice for years.

I am on the fence about the following:

• Prayer of Mending: When Prayer of Mending was a child, I gave it lots of love and encouragement. I raised it to be a reliable member of society, able to help others and live a wholesome life. I felt I had done my job, and was incredibly proud of the spell; as any parent would be in my situation. But it fell in with bad influence. It culminated with it coming home from a night of hardcore punk partying, obviously high on some shady substance and trashed the living room while hollering profanities and scaring all the other heals. Since then, it started stealing money from my wallet, and generally avoiding talking to me. I do love it, and it's keeping up appearances when it has to. But that spell isn't the spell I saw develop into a core part of my healing family. That spell has problems, and there isn't much I can seemingly do to help it. The problem is of course its casting time. Everyone says a casting time is a natural thing amongst healing spells at that age, and that all the other PVP healing spells are doing it, but I know deep down my healing spell has a problem. I want to help it. Please advise.
• Power of the Naruu Artifact Trait: This trait makes AoE healing way more potent. IMO it feels like we're balanced around using it. It smells a little of Chakra in that aspect. That said, I think AoE healing wouldn't be remotely as good without it. But do I enjoy the added complexity? As a one-expansion fling, no problem. But I am not sure I would welcome it as a permanent addition to the spec.
• Light of Tuure Artifact Trait: I must admit I largely ignore the healing boost aspect. For me, this is an instant slightly weaker flash of light. Not too different from Surge of Light. And it's very good to have it in case I need to move while healing. But other than that... rarely used. As an artifact talent, it's awesome. I am not sure I would welcome it as a permanent addition to the spec.
• Lightwell: If there was one spell I actually miss, this is it. Half sentimental reasons; half lacking a proper preparation spell reason. In D&D, a cleric can throw a bunch of buffs up before an anticipated big fight. But you have a limited amount of them, so you can't waste them on small fry. Lightwell was that level of decisionmaking. I do however see that in a zero sum game, adding lighwell means other things must be weaker. Not sure I like that.
  

[Deleted]

Legion Shadow was so awful I finally quit my main of nearly a decade to play an arcane mage, not the least of which due to the immense shooting pain in my wrist I suffered trying to play this fucking travesty of a spec at full speed.

That's my Shadow post mortem: so poorly designed it actually legitimately injured me.

You must feel silly now then switching from top 5 DPS specc to the bottom one

- NUMBERS :
Shadow Priests, to deal acceptable damage, need a 40+ seconds rampup. That could be fine if, after these 40 seconds rampup, SP dealt stupid damage for like 10-15 seconds. They don't, they start dealing normal - slightly beyond the top damage at this point, unless there are 2-3 targets. The worst part being that the smallest GCD you waste during this rampup (may it be to soak something, enemy moving out of range, a stun/silence) completely negates your DPS for a whole minute, because you're simply not functional without Void Torrent, Mindbender and 40 stacks.
Plus, you need a shitload of RNG for that cycle to be optimal. Tentacles (which will disappear in BfA) and Shadowy Apparitions at the right time are one of the reasons you'll be dealing DPS or hitting like a wet noodle.

To summarize, Shadow Priests in raids are a Very high risk - small reward class. What we're expecting is that, if we execute our cycle perfectly, we are rewarded accordingly.
That's not acceptable that a 50+stacks Shadow Priest deals the same amount of damage as any "click on shiny spells" classes do at any time.

And the main problem every one here is talking about :

- EXCITEMENT :
Nobody here likes to play Shadow. That's a boring spec. That's it.

I like how you contradict yourself here. You needed quite a few sentences to explain ramp up for shadow priests. Then you proceeded to explain how small things can screw our DPS easily. then you said you need to think of all this shit and compare to a class using few shinny spells. AND THEN YOU SAID SHADOW IS BORING! Mate shadow is waaaay far away from boring. It's frantic, demanding, very dependable on lag, high risk high reward, stupidly hard to master specc. I can agree we get punished by many mechanics, but last thing you can say about it, it is BORING.

[Ophenia]

I like how you contradict yourself here. You needed quite a few sentences to explain ramp up for shadow priests. Then you proceeded to explain how small things can screw our DPS easily. then you said you need to think of all this shit and compare to a class using few shinny spells. AND THEN YOU SAID SHADOW IS BORING! Mate shadow is waaaay far away from boring. It's frantic, demanding, very dependable on lag, high risk high reward, stupidly hard to master specc. I can agree we get punished by many mechanics, but last thing you can say about it, it is BORING.

I find it way less boring to play a dynamic proc spec rather than a completely frozen-cycle spec like the Shadow Priest. We could have 75 actions-per-second, if those actions are perpetually repeated throughout a 10-minute fight, it is, for me, the definition of boring.

If you find the VoidBolt>MindBlast>MindFlay-2ticks>Repeat for 45 seconds interesting, well that's a good thing for you I guess.
But even an Afflock, which is slow as hell, at least has his DoTs to maintain on the target.
ShadowPriest has no situational spell. You see a target, it can have 10k HP or 10billion HP, you'll do the exact same thing. Damage incoming ? Either this damage is big enough for you to use Dispersion, or you just deal with it and straight ignore it, continue dealing your neverending cycle.

Do you remember the times when you could burst an add with Mind Spikes ? Do you remember the times when you have a few cooldowns (Shadowfiend, Power Infusion) ? Do you remember the times when you could store up to 5 shadow orbs to spend them on any target if needed ? Do you remember when we could decide to play with Shadowy Insight or From Darkness Comes Light to have some procs disrupting the MindFlay spam from time to time ?
Do you remember when we actually had to refresh our DoTs, even taking into account the different trinket procs ?
Do you even remember the times when we could snap a flash heal, Halo, Void Shift or Divine Star on an injured friend just to trigger Twist of Fate ?

Sorry but in my opinion, this iteration of the Shadow Priest is way, way more boring than what we had previously.
Maybe you got triggered by the word Boring. Maybe I should've used "uninteresting" ? Dunno, I'm not native english-speaker.

And SP is not "high risk high reward". At full stacks you're dealing the same damage as every other class.

[Jervaise]

You must feel silly now then switching from top 5 DPS specc to the bottom one




I like how you contradict yourself here. You needed quite a few sentences to explain ramp up for shadow priests. Then you proceeded to explain how small things can screw our DPS easily. then you said you need to think of all this shit and compare to a class using few shinny spells. AND THEN YOU SAID SHADOW IS BORING! Mate shadow is waaaay far away from boring. It's frantic, demanding, very dependable on lag, high risk high reward, stupidly hard to master specc. I can agree we get punished by many mechanics, but last thing you can say about it, it is BORING.

I disagree with high risk/high reward you said. It's more like high risk/normal reward (in which case it's not a reward anymore)

It's fun and engaging - especially after you master a fight and execute it with muscle memory it becomes quite enjoyable to push your (and your hands') limits.

[Rici]

[many good stuff...]
Shackle Undead: Was this even used in the entire expansion? You could remove it tomorrow and I wouldn't notice for years.
[still good stuff here...]

This was a great read all in all, thanks for this.
For your specifc question I quoted: yes, it had its uses. Primarly in the M+ versions of Black Rook Hold (also our class challenge) and the spawning adds in the final room in HoV.

[Zka]

I haven't played much. Some lower m+ and normal/hc raids.

Disc: I loved it from the get go in solo and 5mans. It was efficient and fun.
First I hated it in raids, but later on I realized that changing my talents and playstyle will make the class enjoyable and pretty efficient in raids as well. Got lots of 90-98% parses, it was fun. Lack of efficient reactive healing and spot healing made it painful at times, but overall the spec was brilliant and I enjoyed it greatly. I actually preferred it before the mid-expansion change to PWR.

Holy: tried a few 5mans, it felt incredibly boring and - besides some cds - pretty weak as well. I specced holy only when I needed to spam nova for some dumb shit like dino WQ or the end of Withered scenario.

Shadow: I haven't enjoyed shadow since BC/LK. Multidotting without enemygrid is not my style, but that's just a small issue. Too much micromanagement, too much to lose if you need to move at the wrong time. The entire rotation is way too tight. I could not get close to normal dps numbers even on a target dummy. Using defensive cooldowns to delay void stack decay, wtf that's literally retarded design. I wanna see this spec totally changed, or I'm not touching it again.