Whats wrong with Shadow Priest?

[Isentropy]

Obviously Blizzard disagrees with you, since the whole point of that talent is to never go into Voidform in exchange of taking less damage. Shadow plays right now like always before - without shitty resource called insanity. And it's viable in PvP, unlike of your "insanity" spec.
And yes, you're right, those talents NOW sim 100-200 dps less than "proper" talents. Doesn't make the spec any less shit and hilarious.

You could make that argument with the Legion iteration of Edge of Insanity since it increased your damage when at the max Insanity threshold, which presented a more controlled playstyle because not going into Voidform as soon as possible wasn't as punishing. What they realized with Shadow in BFA was that Voidform had been stripped of most of its benefits and so the Legion design of Edge of Insanity wouldn't work; there would be no incentive to go into Voidform. So they slapped a damage reduction on it instead because they probably couldn't be arsed to completely redesign the talent or get rid of it and come up with a new talent. They never anticipated that it would create a playstyle where you literally never want to go into Voidform because the defense that Edge of Insanity gives is just that broken, and without it the spec is too squishy.

The thought process here wasn't to provide a 'non-Voidform' playstyle. Blizzard isn't happy with the way Edge of Insanity functions right now, I can categorically tell you this. People play with it because it makes you stupidly tanky due to the numbers on it, it has absolutely zero to do with what you're saying.

Moving the goalposts by saying "it doesn't change a thing!" when you've repeatedly used it as arguments as for why you think the spec is shit is questionable to say the least. Shadow Crash and Dark Void also never simmed ahead (let alone by that much) once we figured out our apl, which has been accurate since the launch of the expansion. I'll just copy and paste this to you again: Even if Dark Void and Shadow Crash were the best ST options on their respective rows, it would be entirely irrelevant to Blizzard because both the 45 and 75 row are themed to have talents that scale with additional targets. Every talent on both rows fits that theme. There is no dedicated ST talent.

[Phantombeard]

Yes, shadow is in a bad place and I also agree void form doesn't really feel good. Why because after you cast Void Form your Focus isn't really on dps or rotation anymore its all focused on how long I can keep , to what end? The very defenition of the spec, witch the Devs took to heart I think https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...?term=Insanity
.

[Jervaise]

Yes, shadow is in a bad place and I also agree void form doesn't really feel good. Why because after you cast Void Form your Focus isn't really on dps or rotation anymore its all focused on how long I can keep , to what end? The very defenition of the spec, witch the Devs took to heart I think https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...?term=Insanity
.

Actually, when you go into voidform in any pve content, you want to drop out of it in a timely manner to use void eruption again.

Another interesting thing is, with chorus of insanity (currently our best trait), you can't wait to build your stacks and get out of voidform once again...

It feels very clunky and extremely weird

"I want to be in this form, to drop out again, not too quick, but also as soon as possible, yet not that quick"

[Wardonis]

I kinda miss WoDs dotless rotation. It was fast and fun and engaging.

[Deleted]

Tbh Spriest should have a reverse of Arcane going on with the insanity. Fighting to stay away from the insanity cap.

Kinda like a heat system where everything you do builds heat and you need to cooldown when you have too much.

[Ilnezharra]

Tbh Spriest should have a reverse of Arcane going on with the insanity. Fighting to stay away from the insanity cap.

Kinda like a heat system where everything you do builds heat and you need to cooldown when you have too much.

Exactly, this. What's the point of getting insane periodically and trying to stay that way. Shouldn't it be the exact opposite? Was a major turn-off for me seeing how counter-intuitive it was

[Ophenia]

Tbh Spriest should have a reverse of Arcane going on with the insanity. Fighting to stay away from the insanity cap.

Kinda like a heat system where everything you do builds heat and you need to cooldown when you have too much.

Well yeah, that's obvious, I don't know why Blizzard didn't even think about that.

A spec with a 0-1000 insanity, a threshold to not cross (like 750), builders spells (DoTs, MB, SWD, MF), spenders (Void Eruption for AoE, Void Torrent / Void Bolt for single target, maybe one or two utilities to be able to spend out of combat too, for example a Shadow Covenant-like), and the goal would be to play just below the limit (damage boost for every insanity point) without crossing it.
If you cross the limit, you then enter Voidform, giving you a damage boost but draining Insanity so that you have to build it again.

That would even be a more interesting gamestyle : possibility of playing outside of Voidform without hitting like a wet noodle, and Voidform acting as a "damage cooldown" you can use whenever you want, not when you are forced to (as currently).
Plus, you would even be able to spam Void Eruption if you ever want to, at the cost of quickly draining your Insanity, thus dealing less overall damage, if you ever find that deal valuable.

T100 Talents would alter this to fit what you prefer. Legacy of the Void may increase the threshold to ~900 (more streamlined DPS outside of Voidform), Surrender to Madness would insanely boost your Voidform damage but forbidding you to enter it in the next X minutes (otherwise you die or whatever) for those you enjoy the "maintain Voidform as long as possible" style.

[Jaigar]

To put it simply: Shadow cannot leverage its damage model. Traditionally DoT spec have had steady damage and lack of CDs/burst damage in exchange for good council fight damage or in Legion, execute damage for Shadow and Affliction. Boomkin was the high utility DoT spec with the best AoE of the 3.

Affliction has turned into a ST burst DoT spec with Darkglare and Deathbolt, Boomkin has remained relatively the same, and Shadow is now a burst AoE DoT spec. You can get good AoE DoT dmg on spriest, but it comes from Death Throes, where each trait increases your base SWP damage by almost 50%.

S2M has the potential to add some high damage windows back into shadow. I know on PTR people were hitting 68 stacks or higher, compared to live where during lust, you're hitting around 28-30 tops. If you drop it down to even 60 stacks in the average surrender, and with PTR changes pushing average void form stacks up 5-7 without S2M, you got a good window of a pretty decent haste gain.

Problem is that it currently interacts with CoI in a bad way. Without chorus, ideal is to pop S2M around 15-20 stacks, push your void form as long as you can, drop out, get back into void form, max insanity then surrender drops, leaving you with a few seconds of a void form to void bolt while you can't generate insanity. Problem is, your high CoI stacks will get overwritten by the tiny void form. Theres not many good trait options for shadow, so S2M is out the window unless they change that.