Shadow BFA Datamining

[Al Gorefiend]

Mop was prime time for shadow.. the expansion we got a stealth, lots of self heals and being untargetabke in fade.. like you must havr been one bad shadow if you rerolled in Mop lol.
Jokes a side.. I get the feeling, but cata mop and wod were all realy decent for shadow, but sayibg it scaled bad is just not true..
You played in like the best expansion for shadow.. outside of wrath which was good as well.

Bfa looks realy bland, and got stripped off lots of self heals... pvp wise we suck in bfa, but the damage in dung (mythic as well) is realy good.
So I am confused what you are talking about.

Of course MoP Spriest was the best. MoP was the culmination of every great idea they've had since Vanilla wrapped into a shiny and far superior talent system. It felt like you as a character was at the height of their power.

Then for some.. some... reason, Blizzard decided WoD was going to radically change Spriest's endgame rotation with whatever that t100 talent was called that turned the spec into a single-target dotless rotation. Which I didn't mind, it wasn't awful just too new and too short-lived.

Then Legion came, and we lost so much. So so much.

[Archpriest]

To be fair we are getting Leap of Faith back, so that’s nice. Really the utility spell I was missing the most.

[Alanar]

To be fair we are getting Leap of Faith back, so that’s nice. Really the utility spell I was missing the most.

I like it, but I like it better if we get the glyph back were you get pulled to your target.. like some sort of leap. It used to be great!

[Relapses]

Mop was prime time for shadow.. the expansion we got a stealth, lots of self heals and being untargetabke in fade.. like you must havr been one bad shadow if you rerolled in Mop lol.
Jokes a side.. I get the feeling, but cata mop and wod were all realy decent for shadow, but sayibg it scaled bad is just not true..
You played in like the best expansion for shadow.. outside of wrath which was good as well.

Wha...? Did we play the same game? I had a pretty unhealthy addiction to WoW back in MoP so I cleared 14/14H on 5 toons in, almost exclusively on caster DPS (SPriest, Moonkin, Mage, Ele Shaman and Warlock) so I'd like to think I have a pretty good idea how the class stacked up outside of "being bad." Shadow was almost dead last on nearly every encounter. Our ST was mediocre, our AE was shit when compared to other casters and while we could multi-DoT just fine Warlocks with Soul Swap were so much more effective at it that it made it nearly pointless to bring a SPriest over a Warlock in any given situation. I mean, take a look at this: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/5#difficulty=4

There's a single SPriest there, and that was for Nazgrim on a parse where they pulled the trash before Nazgrim with the boss and just padded the everliving shit out of everything. (WCL didn't really care about that shit back in MoP.) Even on the individual boss breakdowns, Shadow isn't near the top on any encounters unless they a.) were allowed to pad or b.) were in an exceptionally shitty group and were able to keep the boss in ToF range for a ridiculous amount of time. Granted, these issues were less prevalent in 10M Heroic... but even though I personally played in a 10M guild for the first part of SoO I always considered 25M to be the true representation of the spec's power.

That said, I'm glad you liked MoP SPriest (I'll admit it was better than WoD/Legion but the lack of a burst cooldown made the spec pretty subpar, imo) but it's a lie to say the spec didn't have major scaling issues when comparing it to Mages/Warlocks or even Boomkins at the time.

[Kilee25]

I agree about MoP vs other expansions. I liked how the class worked, but we scaled pretty poorly and kept falling behind as the expac progressed.

For me, it was cata, bc, wod, end of wrath, beginning of mop... everything else.

[Archpriest]

I like it, but I like it better if we get the glyph back were you get pulled to your target.. like some sort of leap. It used to be great!

Yea I remember alot of priest being happy about that glyph but I never used it myself. Found saving other people more usefull in raids:

[Relapses]

Yea I remember alot of priest being happy about that glyph but I never used it myself. Found saving other people more usefull in raids:

...I remember reverse lifegripping a tank to get up to the platforms on Mythic Blackhand. Fun times those were. ._.

[Ophenia]

Wha...? Did we play the same game? I had a pretty unhealthy addiction to WoW back in MoP so I cleared 14/14H on 5 toons in, almost exclusively on caster DPS (SPriest, Moonkin, Mage, Ele Shaman and Warlock) so I'd like to think I have a pretty good idea how the class stacked up outside of "being bad." Shadow was almost dead last on nearly every encounter. Our ST was mediocre, our AE was shit when compared to other casters and while we could multi-DoT just fine Warlocks with Soul Swap were so much more effective at it that it made it nearly pointless to bring a SPriest over a Warlock in any given situation. I mean, take a look at this: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/5#difficulty=4

Oh hey look, another guy talking about numbers

MoP was the most fun, yes, and we had a shitload of utility your fcking Mages or Warlocks didn't have.
I've never seen your Soul Swap doing 400k HPS nor any kind of Arrow soaking against Klaxxis, or any fcking badass assist on Tsulong, or any insane Divine Star against Megaera, nothing of these.

But keep fcking talking about numbers yeah, that's totally what we're talking about here. NUMBERSSSSSSSSSSSS, wanna be #1 !!!!!!!

You look like the kind of guy who is only happy with the design of a class if it is top DPS. Just play Warlock then, you'll be more than happy, but don't enforce your crappy tastes on everyone.

[Deleted]

Bake a decent mass hysteria into voidform to give meaningful voidforms for the 20 seconds or so you're in it. It's essentially the dot version of colossus smash which blizz seem to find as the only working mechanic for every class now. Mass hysteria had way too much ramp up in legion, if it was designed numerically around short bursts like current void forms it would have no real ramp up problems.

Lingering insanity talent makes mass hysteria drop off in stages rather than once voidform ends.

Make void bolt cleave all targets affected by both swp and vt, you have another meaningful voidform use and no need for 3 aoe talents. There is your m+ aoe.

Make mindflay castable while moving.

[Zarrant]

Bake a decent mass hysteria into voidform to give meaningful voidforms for the 20 seconds or so you're in it. It's essentially the dot version of colossus smash which blizz seem to find as the only working mechanic for every class now. Mass hysteria had way too much ramp up in legion, if it was designed numerically around short bursts like current void forms it would have no real ramp up problems.

Lingering insanity talent makes mass hysteria drop off in stages rather than once voidform ends.

Make void bolt cleave all targets affected by both swp and vt, you have another meaningful voidform use and no need for 3 aoe talents. There is your m+ aoe.

Make mindflay castable while moving.

I like all of this minus the casting mindflay and moving (even tho it would be sick). There have been so many fantastic ideas and blizz has had sooooooo much time but they just failed to execute anything. It's so dissapointing.

[Spicymemer]

I said shadow was fundamentally broken back in NH, nobody believed me.
Its funny how you kids come crawling out of the woodwork now that you no longer have big voidforms and tier sets to carry you.

Anyone who mentions Mass Hysteria as a solution to ANY issue shadow has, is retarded, not even trying to insult them, its actually a case of incredibly low IQ and they should be taught why they're wrong, not me though, im not an exceptionally caring person.

[Kilee25]

Oh hey look, another guy talking about numbers

MoP was the most fun, yes, and we had a shitload of utility your fcking Mages or Warlocks didn't have.
I've never seen your Soul Swap doing 400k HPS nor any kind of Arrow soaking against Klaxxis, or any fcking badass assist on Tsulong, or any insane Divine Star against Megaera, nothing of these.

But keep fcking talking about numbers yeah, that's totally what we're talking about here. NUMBERSSSSSSSSSSSS, wanna be #1 !!!!!!!

You look like the kind of guy who is only happy with the design of a class if it is top DPS. Just play Warlock then, you'll be more than happy, but don't enforce your crappy tastes on everyone.

Both are important, I think.

I agree with both of you. I liked the mechanics introduced in MoP a lot. Definitely fun new things introduced at this time. At the same time, scaling was bad, and I had to work twice as hard for mediocre results. That wasn’t fun, and I’m not sure the utility outweighed that or not... at this point in my life, I actually do want both, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask of a game that asks so much of my time in return. But yes it’s just my opinion, and we can agree to disagree if you want.

[Deleted]

I had to work twice as hard for mediocre results.

So common it should be our motto tbh

[Ophenia]

Both are important, I think.

I agree with both of you. I liked the mechanics introduced in MoP a lot. Definitely fun new things introduced at this time. At the same time, scaling was bad, and I had to work twice as hard for mediocre results. That wasn’t fun, and I’m not sure the utility outweighed that or not... at this point in my life, I actually do want both, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask of a game that asks so much of my time in return. But yes it’s just my opinion, and we can agree to disagree if you want.

Of course numbers are important. But numbers problems are easy to fix, a simple hotfix +xx% in the middle of the expansion can completely throw you on top of the meter chart.

But if the gamestyle sucks, you're stuck with it for the whole expac, at least.

[Deleted]

I wouldn't say it hurts my feelings, I'd say I'm really puzzled about people determined to stick with a negative experience. What's happening when people who don't enjoy playing shadow carry on playing shadow?

Just to pick some of the phrases used in the last couple of thread pages:

"fundamentally broken"
"how fucked up the spec is"
"BFA SP looks dog shit"
"the few things that made Shadow somewhat playable have been removed"
"shadow will release a mess"
"hatred for the abomination that shadow has become"

Do these sound like people who would have a happy BFA experience playing shadow priest?

I hope something about shadow is fun for them regardless of the above comments, and if not, it's time to change over to something fun. It's just a computer game.

For example, my priest is old enough to attend second grade. There is a fundamental level of attachment that one gets, even to just voxels. I also heal a lot and really enjoy the current iteration of holy. On top of that, I really only enjoy the caster gameplay, so my choices for reroll are limited to shammy, another class that got mostly ignored in BFA development, and druid, the class that I do not enjoy neither balance nor resto.

So you see, it's not as easy as "just play something else", neither should I be forced to do that due to developer negligence.

[Felfuhrer]

One small tiny tweak that could make void form good for BfA would be for it to increase all secondary stats per stack and making lingering insanity baseline again. With Mass Hysteria gone I don't understand why they let voidform be so hollow. I mean I understood that for balance voidform only ever increased haste but there is far more to tap into with it than just attacking faster.

[Relapses]

Oh hey look, another guy talking about numbers

MoP was the most fun, yes, and we had a shitload of utility your fcking Mages or Warlocks didn't have.
I've never seen your Soul Swap doing 400k HPS nor any kind of Arrow soaking against Klaxxis, or any fcking badass assist on Tsulong, or any insane Divine Star against Megaera, nothing of these.

But keep fcking talking about numbers yeah, that's totally what we're talking about here. NUMBERSSSSSSSSSSSS, wanna be #1 !!!!!!!

You look like the kind of guy who is only happy with the design of a class if it is top DPS. Just play Warlock then, you'll be more than happy, but don't enforce your crappy tastes on everyone.

...look dude, I don't really want to derail this thread with irrelevant conversation but the guy I quoted literally stated that Shadow didn't have scaling problems in MoP. This is a patently false statement. As I said in the part of my post you conveniently forgot to quote, I enjoyed my SPriest in MoP. Go ahead and check out my twitch.tv. Almost all of the VoDs I have from MoP are of me on my SPriest. Believe it or not, it's possible to be critical of a spec without conflating one's satisfaction on how it plays with how it performs. (See: I rerolled to Arcane in HFC. Fuck that shit.)

[Onyd]

For example, my priest is old enough to attend second grade. There is a fundamental level of attachment that one gets, even to just voxels. I also heal a lot and really enjoy the current iteration of holy. On top of that, I really only enjoy the caster gameplay, so my choices for reroll are limited to shammy, another class that got mostly ignored in BFA development, and druid, the class that I do not enjoy neither balance nor resto.

So you see, it's not as easy as "just play something else", neither should I be forced to do that due to developer negligence.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, the disconnect between my experience and others' experience of shadow priest is that level of attachment. I'm not as attached (been playing since late Cata, DS tier) and I've been approaching this thread from that position. I can definitely see how this is unpleasant for all of you.

I wish I had something more reassuring to say in the context of WoW being a business that is run for purposes other than resolving our class fantasy/gameplay/rotation unhappiness. It doesn't seem like any of this is about developer negligence, player passion, or anything other than modifying a fairly complex class within the deadlines imposed by the expansion release date. I'm going to play what turns up and likely enjoy it but I definitely can't speak for many other players in this regard.

I definitely hope your experience winds up better in the live BFA.

[Deleted]

One small tiny tweak that could make void form good for BfA would be for it to increase all secondary stats per stack and making lingering insanity baseline again. With Mass Hysteria gone I don't understand why they let voidform be so hollow. I mean I understood that for balance voidform only ever increased haste but there is far more to tap into with it than just attacking faster.

The old mass hysteria was terrible because it was how we did most of our damage, we would not really see damage like other specs until the stacks were into the 40's.

This obviously cannot happen now since our voidforms are half of that duration.

If we saw an actual fixed number mass hysteria or just it starts off at a decent % like other similar mechanic, earth spike, dark slash and colossus smash it would actually be a decent thing to have and makes voidforms actually have a point to them.

Problem is everyone hated mass hysteria because it was not your typical colossus smash and they have heard that loud and clear. Unfortunately though they do their typical spriest blizz change and rather than just give us a proper colossus smash version they just outright remove it then try to slap on some gimmick talents as replacements.

Like honestly all it would need is voidform increases dot dmg by 30% and 1 or 2% per stack, there we have a noticible damage increase for our voidform, no actual ramp up and voidform has a purpose that you actually want to stay in voidform for as long as possible again.

For now all it is used for is void erruptions, it allows you to cast void bolt but what is the point? You're better off just dropping out of voidform asap, casting your 3 globals to get back into voidform for another eruption and then repeat.

Its why i suggested a proper colossus smash version of mass hysteria tied to voidform and give voidbolt cleave to targets with both your dots on. There you have reasons to actually use voidform and void bolt with no need for 2/3 gimmicky aoe talents.
You also solve the refreshing dots during voidform issue( if they buff the duration changes) plus you have some on demand aoe for m+.

It's not perfect but it's atleast a playable way to have meaningful voidforms until the new rework.

[Felfuhrer]

The old mass hysteria was terrible because it was how we did most of our damage, we would not really see damage like other specs until the stacks were into the 40's.

This obviously cannot happen now since our voidforms are half of that duration.

If we saw an actual fixed number mass hysteria or just it starts off at a decent % like other similar mechanic, earth spike, dark slash and colossus smash it would actually be a decent thing to have and makes voidforms actually have a point to them.

Problem is everyone hated mass hysteria because it was not your typical colossus smash and they have heard that loud and clear. Unfortunately though they do their typical spriest blizz change and rather than just give us a proper colossus smash version they just outright remove it then try to slap on some gimmick talents as replacements.

Like honestly all it would need is voidform increases dot dmg by 30% and 1 or 2% per stack, there we have a noticible damage increase for our voidform, no actual ramp up and voidform has a purpose that you actually want to stay in voidform for as long as possible again.

For now all it is used for is void erruptions, it allows you to cast void bolt but what is the point? You're better off just dropping out of voidform asap, casting your 3 globals to get back into voidform for another eruption and then repeat.

Its why i suggested a proper colossus smash version of mass hysteria tied to voidform and give voidbolt cleave to targets with both your dots on. There you have reasons to actually use voidform and void bolt with no need for 2/3 gimmicky aoe talents.
You also solve the refreshing dots during voidform issue( if they buff the duration changes) plus you have some on demand aoe for m+.

It's not perfect but it's atleast a playable way to have meaningful voidforms until the new rework.

I don't want a CS mechanic tho..I want voidform to feel like im fighting being insane and reaping the benefits of insanity i.e. improved "strength" via buffing all secondaries (it literally takes a group of people to subdue someone who is hallucinating or dealing with a psychotic break). I don't think mass hysteria would be bad with the voidforms we are getting now but i think there are better ways to go about making voidform fun and unique than just giving a CS mechanic. I'm tired of all recycled Do x% more damage buffs/cds classes have now and plenty of specs have CS like mechanics. I want something unique.