Is shadow the worst its ever been?

[Ophenia]

Well maybe it is your fault then for picking a class that only has 1 dps spec, when you refuse to play anything other then dps?

Maybe we wanted to play something related to the Shadows, you know.

[FelPlague]

Maybe we wanted to play something related to the Shadows, you know.

So play a warlock?
if you want to lock yourself into only ever 1 spec, dont then cry that your not top dps.

[Ophenia]

So play a warlock?

Maybe I wanted to play something related to the S.h.a.d.o.w.s, you know. Don't care about demons.

Another troll in another Priest topic, another to join the Ignore List, why do you even feel obliged to pollute the threads of classes you don't even play or care about ?

[Spicymemer]

So play a warlock?
if you want to lock yourself into only ever 1 spec, dont then cry that your not top dps.

Nice life with 16,000 posts, whats it like on welfare?

[Grable]

Nice life with 16,000 posts, whats it like on welfare?

15k posts of complete garbage in about 2 years and a half. I'm actually amazed.

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So it is a case of "I don't like something so you have to hate it too". Lets be honest. When people think dps they never think priest. They are the healing class. Always have been and always will be. As a dps they are viable right now. They are nowhere near as bad as what they have been or what the cry babies would have you believe. New players have no idea how bad shadow priest was. In BC the maximum amount of dps they could do on a single target was less than 1600 dps but you still took 1 for their utility. Apart from the odd time that mages were bugged, you never took a mage if you had a warlock in BC. They would stand at the entrance, give you your buff and food and that was it. Shadow priests have traditionally been a low dps spec and rightfully so. If you wanted to do high dps you probably should have chosen a dps class, not the healing class.

If I wanted to play an MMORPG with classes that only have one viable spec out of many I'd go play Vanilla WoW. Modern WoW doesn't do that anymore so your entire argument falls flat.

[FelPlague]

Maybe I wanted to play something related to the S.h.a.d.o.w.s, you know. Don't care about demons.

Another troll in another Priest topic, another to join the Ignore List, why do you even feel obliged to pollute the threads of classes you don't even play or care about ?

I'd you play a class based on just it's theme of one spec, and then cry it is is not competitive in a patch, that is your fault man.

Its funny how if your a warlock "just play another spec" well what if I wanted to play with demons? Well then. Same reason, why dont you just go holy or disc, cause you wanna play with shadows.

Shadow is not the worst spec right now, its meh atleast

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Nice life with 16,000 posts, whats it like on welfare?

16,000? Since when was 14,843=16,000
Also really, about 15 posts a day is "no life on welfare" to you?

[Garak]

No, in BC they were only brought to raids for mana batteries, their Vampiric Touch.

[BlueRemedy]

No, in BC they were only brought to raids for mana batteries, their Vampiric Touch.

They were fun in BC, they worked well in PvP in BC they had tons of utility and identity in BC

If you think BC was worse than now, you're a dumbfuck.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

No, in BC they were only brought to raids for mana batteries, their Vampiric Touch.

Shadow was one of the top Dps in t4 and early t5 gear. Our problem was that we had like zero scaling with gear, resulting in a very minimal increase in Dps going from t4 gear to BiS t6 gear. This was mainly because back then not everybody had 200% Crit dmg baseline, and Shadow was one of the classes stuck with 150% Crit dmg instead. On top of that, DoTs could not Crit and were not affected by Haste. DoT Crit scaling was made baseline in WotLK, and DoT Haste scaling was added as an experimental version at the end of WotLK, while we had to wait for Cata for DoTs to get proper scaling with Haste like they have now.

Compare this to the best Dps classes in TBC like Locks, Hunters and Rogues, who had full 200% Crit dmg in their specs, and got massive benefit from both Crit and Haste, since they used direct attacks/spells instead of DoTs, resulting in high scaling with every single piece of gear they got.

[splatomat]

I havent liked the direction of Shadow for a while but i wanted to level my priest in BFA. Got about 10 mobs in and i changed to Disc. I dont know whst kind of vision they have for the spec (none, maybe?) But right now it feels like a hot mess.

[Makabreska]

Dunno, but I actually enjoy current shadow. Leveling was much better than in Legion and we actually have some burst. Expected a shitshow after seeing all the opinions from beta, but spec plays fairly ok for me. Now, if only so many talents werent useless...

[Deleted]

What, do you think having the worst mobility of any healer is going to have some sort of up-side as a trade-off? Or all that utility Holy doesn't bring? Psh.

Think about all the undead enemies and the *looks up spell* how useful Shackle undead is in that case? Pff having the number one healing class (by name) take the top spot.

Buff Power Word: Shield

It breaks too often due to damage from mobs (especially mult mobs). Not sure about the 15 sec duration. Should that be increased as well or not?

I usually try to save my mana for Shadow Mend, often more useful than shield.

your fault for choosing to play dps in a class with only 1 dps.

I originally wanted to heal, people are dicks. A lot of stuff is still attached to character instead of account so I don't change. What am I left with? Shadow. Also what's your argument for giving a class that only has one DPS spec one of the few/only back loaded class designs when almost every other class is front loaded?

[SirreASDF]

Dunno, but I actually enjoy current shadow. Leveling was much better than in Legion and we actually have some burst. Expected a shitshow after seeing all the opinions from beta, but spec plays fairly ok for me. Now, if only so many talents werent useless...

I kind of enjoy it as well.. I disliked the Legion version, but now with Dark Ascension, and "less" emphasis on Void Form, I kind of enjoy it.. I did my first Mythic+es yesterday, after not having done any normal mythics on the priest, and my performance was well above what I had expected.

Sure, my WW monk does more damage, but Monks have always done great in dungeons..

Overall, I Think it plays rather nicely, even if I have been an opponent of Void Form all since the introduction.

Single Target damage does need some love though. Dunno how much gear will change this (currently only at 342).

All this is based on mythic+ though, since I don't raid anymore.

[krl]

Dunno, but I actually enjoy current shadow. Leveling was much better than in Legion and we actually have some burst. Expected a shitshow after seeing all the opinions from beta, but spec plays fairly ok for me. Now, if only so many talents werent useless...

That is true in a void, the spec kind of works. I used it to level and now WQ efficiently as shadow ~350ilvl.

However after having played multiple other specs in leveling, dungeons and WQ, shadow is certainly the less pleasant one. It feels uninspired, clunky, unpleasant.

[Tripax]

However after having played multiple other specs in leveling, dungeons and WQ, shadow is certainly the less pleasant one. It feels uninspired, clunky, unpleasant.

Key to enjoying shadow is to not try any other classes.

[Kyranna]

Key to enjoying shadow is to not try any other classes.

And never meet them, never watch them when they do stuff, uninstall all damage meters and install a mod that keeps congratulating you for the awesome shadow powers you wield in front of the puny mortals.

[Archpriest]

(PVE)
So over the last few weeks I've tried to formulate what it is about shadow that feels off atm. I don't care about tuning much and since my raid team is all over the place itemlevel and artifact level wise I don't really think it makes much sense to compare my damage to that of my teammates. Instead I want to focus on the mechanics of the spec and our niche.

The current version of Shadow is an iteration of how shadow worked in Legion. We certainly had our ups and downs in Legion, but overall I enjoyed the spec and while the new class fantasy was jarring at first I felt like it made for a more coherent spec than before. Most of the talents synergised well with how the spec flowed (though the tuning of some might have been off...). From patch 7.1 (think it was this one... where surrender to madness was nerfed?) until BfA shadow were the most fun I've had with the spec since I started playing it in Mists. The long voidforms with stacking haste and dot damage allowed for great risk/reward gameplay in raids but this did not always translate well into dungeons, partly because our AOE benefittet very little form voidform and partly because we lacked burst AOE. As such Legion Shadow priest had the niche of strong multidotting, decent to strong single target and very "meh" AOE, something which was in line with the previous expansions.

Enter BfA. Voidform is nerfed massivly due to the loss of our dear dagger and the haste bonus being reduced. Additonally insanity is lost faster in voidform, reducing how long you can stay in it. Void Eruption is now a burst AOE. Together these factors mean that the risk/reward of voidform is much lower and that the spec requires much less setup and ramp up to do damage - on the flip side it also massivly nerfed our mulitdotting potential. As such our new niche seems to be okay multidotting, okay single target and burst AOE? This is a huge change from how shadow worked before and while burst AOE is nice for dungeons Im not sure I like it for a few reasons.
Firstly, burst AOE is tied to Void Eruption, meaning it's not an on demand ability (though there are several talents which may help with this) and it does not ad anything to voidform itself. In fact I often feel like it would be more beneficial for me to drop voidform and try to get another void eruption off during larger trash pulls, which goes against everything the spec is build around.
Secondly, this change in niche was not followed by a thorough talent cleanup. Sure, shadow now has multiple talents which allow for greater AOE burst (and a way to spread dots! Yay!) but once again none of them interact with voidform other than generating insanity. Worse still, several old talents made it over to BfA with no or minor changes, meaning they don't synergise with how shadow is played now. And making Shadow word: Death a talent was... a mistake. When the risk/reward of voidform was reduced much of what made the spec interesting and exciting was lost and following this by taking away a baseline spell further reduced the complexety and, in my opinion, the fun of the spec.
...
I know many of these points have been mentioned before but I felt the need to write them down myself. I still enjoy playing shadow and playing WoW but I do hope they make the spec more coherent in patch 8.1.They need to figure out what they want shadow to be and then make the gameplay and talents support it. I personally hope for something closer to Legions version of shadow but ultimately I just want voidform to be interesing again.

And maybe that is my main problem with Shadow atm. Voidform is currently not interesting as a gameplay mechanic.

[deviantcultist]

Just waiting for the inevitable disappointment of 8.1.

Scared about it too. With all the focus on Shaman, there is a risk of them skipping work on us.

[Volitar]

Yes by far. People keep bringing up BC but I think at this point Priest were probably closers percentage wise to the top DPS even in t6 than they are currently. Not to mention a trainwreck of a spec.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Yes by far. People keep bringing up BC but I think at this point Priest were probably closers percentage wise to the top DPS even in t6 than they are currently. Not to mention a trainwreck of a spec.

You are allowed to think so, but you would be extremely wrong. I'm not saying that SPs are in a good spot atm (we are not), but a good SP will beat a bad Warlock atm. A good SP could NOT beat a bad Warlock in TBC, WotLK or MoP, t4 and t10 excluded.