Shadow is the worst spec I have ever played

[Jervaise]

When I talk about old shadow I mean old shadow, not MoP or WoD.

I acknowledged the problems inside the post you quoted and at no point did I say it was perfect or that it was even enjoyable.

What I won't accept is people talking about TBC, Wrath or Cata as if it was so much fun, when it's practically the same as now. The spec has regressed significantly in a lot of ways, those you acknowledge and that was my point.

However, I am not an avid fan of Mindspike and never was outside of PvP. I am a firm believer that a spec should not excel in every aspect of the game and I feel like a lot of the complaints here are misplaced by people complaining about a lack of damage in certain scenarios rather than how the spec actually plays in those scenarios - two different things.

Most importantly people now think Shadow is hard to play and that just isn't true at all.

Dude I'm playing the same priest as shadow since march 2005 - as main. There is nothing same about the current iteration and and TBC. I get what you mean - that is about we have a similar niche and some exact same spells. But that's about it. What most argue about is that it's not any better, or in most cases it's worse due to added layers pushing us deeper into the niche.

I believe it will be much better in BFA due to mass hysteria being removed and VF providing the damage boost in a more immediate fashion.

[Deleted]

Amen brother

[Deleted]

Shadow is one of the most fluent, smoothest specs right now, I'm having difficulty comprehending this thread.

[Kasierith]

When I talk about old shadow I mean old shadow, not MoP or WoD.

I acknowledged the problems inside the post you quoted and at no point did I say it was perfect or that it was even enjoyable.

What I won't accept is people talking about TBC, Wrath or Cata as if it was so much fun, when it's practically the same as now. The spec has regressed significantly in a lot of ways, those you acknowledge and that was my point.

However, I am not an avid fan of Mindspike and never was outside of PvP. I am a firm believer that a spec should not excel in every aspect of the game and I feel like a lot of the complaints here are misplaced by people complaining about a lack of damage in certain scenarios rather than how the spec actually plays in those scenarios - two different things.

Most importantly people now think Shadow is hard to play and that just isn't true at all.

Considering that in TBC the purpose of a shadow priest was to be a mana battery and spot healer on top of ok dps, and thus had a more auxiliary dps role rather than pure dps which was changed with wotlk forward, I'm going to assume that no you have zero shadow priest experience that far back (at least as far as raiding is concerned). It also gave room for holy priests to spec more purely into healing instead of having to get the spirit buff from the disc tree. What's more, pvp has changed significantly because overall survivability across all classes has greatly increased while shadow priest burst really hasn't changed, meaning that unlike vanilla, TBC, and wotlk shadow priests are not stellar 1v1 duelists because spriest survivability has, if anything, decreased over time as more and more healing talents were sequestered purely into the other two trees and vampiric embrace was shifted to be more of a short term burst heal that requires focused dps rather than a gradual life leech.

If you want to compete for top dps charts, and that's your idea of fun, than yes you are correct the older expansions and vanilla were not ideal for shadow priests. But there were certain niches that we could easily slot into, and in TBC especially there was always a spot for shadow priests in a raid. In the current iteration of shadow priests, why on earth would you ever take one as a priority slot? There's really only one place where shadow priests can excel( 2-3 target cleave), and everything else is a mixed bag of merely ok and absolutely horrible. And that one spot affliction locks can still supersede us in since they don't need to maintain focused dps to avoid dropping everything and don't have a ramp up time, and thus are less vulnerable to certain raid mechanics that simply shut down the raid for a little bit, and on top of that a warlock can be flexible to prioritize single target or aoe burst.

I would say that TBC, wrath, or cata was much more fun, because ultimately shadow spec has never been a dedicated and priority dps spec (apart from emerald nightmare STM), but we had strong niches that we could fall into, specifically battleground pvp, high level arenas, and dps that brings some support aspects as well both with being a mana battery and adding on some healing. Right now, however, there is no significant tradeoff for those drawbacks apart from high level arenas, where the three forms of CC can still allow us to excel in 3v3s.

[sirethas]

The ramp up issue which everyone mentioned is of course the biggest problem of the spec. Anywhere beside high keys and raids it just doesn't work, even some raid encounters (Immonar, Eonar) it's just terrible to have your dps cut at your highest. But you know what, at this point of game where all I do is just mythic raid and high keys I don't mind it, the gameplay is super fun, unlike the rogue I've been playing throughout whole Legion (subletly being DFA simulator, outlul which relies on rng regardless of playing SnD or RTB and then ResidentSleeper assa) and I really enjoy the void fantasy. When it comes to world questing and m0 dungs it's really sad that you use void form only for initial burst damage and the whole ramp up and fun phase is just gone, this definetly needs some work on.
I saw some nice suggest to cut the void form duration in half but double the haste you gain per stack or make it like demo warlock's metamorphosis, I didn't really put big thought into what it would cause but something in that direction would be welcomed.

We shall see what will Blizzard do with spriest in BFA, hopefully this expansion gave them some idea where to go with spriest.

[Deleted]

Shadow is one of the most fluent, smoothest specs right now, I'm having difficulty comprehending this thread.

Probably because you're a hunter main with a spriest alt that you only use for raiding, literally the only part of wow where spriest functions decently.

For you it's a fun new spec to play raids with, for us our class was taken away from us and replaced with this. Similar to how MM and SV went.

[Deleted]

Probably because you're a hunter main with a spriest alt that you only use for raiding, literally the only part of wow where spriest functions decently.

For you it's a fun new spec to play raids with, for us our class was taken away from us and replaced with this. Similar to how MM and SV went.

I don't main hunter, very poor job looking through my recent post though. Doesn't change the point that shadow is a powerful, smooth and competitive spec if you know how to use it correctly which I don't believe most people do.

[Ophenia]

Doesn't change the point that shadow is a powerful, smooth and competitive spec if you know how to use it correctly which I don't believe most people do.

Here we go again, another guy talking about numbers.

NOBODY HERE IS COMPLAINING/TALKING ABOUT RAW NUMBERS.
Stop replying to topics if you never plan on reading at least half of them.

Dat Recount Generation.

Edit : And "smooth" doesn't make sense in WoW's context.

[Deleted]

It doesn't bring anything different or unique to the dungeon that anyone would ever think to themselves yeah I'd really like a shadow priest here.

What? You never had someone that's missing mind control or shackle undead for a mythic+? That content is slow and strategic so that we have a lot of potential to show how nice a class shadow is! Hmmm wait a minute ...

Completely agree about the whole ramp-up part. Even if people argument that there should be differences and niches between classes/specs, there's just no fun in needing a minute to build up your damage, when pretty much everyone else can just slam theirs out on the first global.
Yes they might be balanced in raids, but what about mythic+? Not everyone are doing 18+ where they might be ok. Doing ordinary dungeons, leveling, soloing or lower key mythics is a joke.

I don't mind having a niche either but why not give it to someone that has an opt out? Instead priests got the niche for their only damage spec. Meanwhile I have rarely seen anyone that's actively looking for a priest that heals (in either spec). Because even in their primary content it doesn't look they can really shine (but I haven't spend that much time on the light side of priests).

On the not so sarcastic and bitter side I actually kind of enjoyed the play for Legion as S2M with its tentacles did have something unique to it that, though I really hated it at first, kind of grew fond of. The downside is that I missed out on most of the content because WQs have been a chore and mythic+ wasn't something I could do casually and I didn't have the dedication for it and even if I did ... well why not pick something that is good at it? After being able to do mythics with a few close friends I'd no need to the raid I've done before ... guess I won't be unlocking that skin for my knaifu.

Personally I really felt like Void Elves are a slap in the face and I expect yet another turn for priests in BfA class fantasy wise.

[Deleted]

I don't main hunter, very poor job looking through my recent post though. Doesn't change the point that shadow is a powerful, smooth and competitive spec if you know how to use it correctly which I don't believe most people do.

This is the problem, you have an alt that you think just because it works in raids its a good spec.

Not a single person complains about performance they complain about how the spec is designed. Like i said its your raid alt so ofc you think its good, go do some m+ or arena and get back to us about how well designed and competitive the spec is.

But what does it matter, come bfa when we lose MH and we are back bottom dps you will be on a diff alt and i will officially start a new expac on a different class for the first time.

[Deleted]

This is the problem, you have an alt that you think just because it works in raids its a good spec.

Not a single person complains about performance they complain about how the spec is designed. Like i said its your raid alt so ofc you think its good, go do some m+ or arena and get back to us about how well designed and competitive the spec is.

But what does it matter, come bfa when we lose MH and we are back bottom dps you will be on a diff alt and i will officially start a new expac on a different class for the first time.

I don't think you have access to my account or logs, so I'm not sure where you're drawing these accusations? I've claimed top 10 mythic parsing on multiple fights and numerous high M+ levels during this expansion playing a shadow so I think I know what I'm saying what I say the spec is fine the way it is, a bit on the strong side but you can't balance them all I suppose.

- - - Updated - - -

Here we go again, another guy talking about numbers.

NOBODY HERE IS COMPLAINING/TALKING ABOUT RAW NUMBERS.
Stop replying to topics if you never plan on reading at least half of them.

Dat Recount Generation.

Edit : And "smooth" doesn't make sense in WoW's context.

When shadow wasn't pulling strong numbers many tiers ago, people complained, when they do, people find something else that's at most *very minor *to complain about. The play style is perfect, the numbers are strong. I don't see the issues here.

[Deleted]

@Alright Have you played low mythics? Do you do WQs? Especially those that require you to kill multiple mobs? Oh and what iLevel are you at and how did you get there?

[Kasierith]

@Alright Have you played low mythics? Do you do WQs? Especially those that require you to kill multiple mobs? Oh and what iLevel are you at and how did you get there?

Shadow priests are actually great at that multi target stuff. VT (with swp tacked on by misery) on everything in sight, void form, shadow crash is going to kill the majority of WQ normal mobs. That's just taking questing talents instead of raiding talents to world quests.

[Celista]

A dev will never read this but on the off chance they do and care about my opinion, after playing around with most of the caster specs in Legion I have found that most of them feel very clunky. A lot of it has to do with secondary resource systems and the ramp-up time in utilization of major abilities (many of which have cooldowns anyway) + AoE.

It feels unnecessarily punishing, especially in comparison to several melee DPS specs.

[Arainie]

I don't think you have access to my account or logs, so I'm not sure where you're drawing these accusations? I've claimed top 10 mythic parsing on multiple fights and numerous high M+ levels during this expansion playing a shadow so I think I know what I'm saying what I say the spec is fine the way it is, a bit on the strong side but you can't balance them all I suppose..

I mean, there are a couple of very valid reason as to why Shadow is the lowest (by far) represented spec in the M+ invitational so far (raider.io details all +20 and higher keys during the two proving grounds weeks, go have a look!), and no matter how you feel you can't argue with those numbers. Most trash pulls don't last one minute if you've got a decent setup even at 25+ keys, so shadow automatically falls behind regardless of what talents you pick.

There are two major issues with the current design in M+. Number one, which is perhaps the most important one on very high keys, is that we don't have even close to the same survivability as warlocks and boomkins which automatically puts us behind them in the ranged category. The second and perhaps most noticeable reason is that you want DPS with front loaded damage, and we provide the exact opposite even if the legendary chest helps out a little bit. If you run a setup that can blow up packs every minute (or with warlocks, blow up anything at any time...) our ramp up becomes extremely detrimental to the group's overall performance. Yes, shadow works in higher keys up until we can't survive anymore, but so does literally every other DPS spec in the game if that's what you're aiming for. Unless the warlock, boomkin, mage or hunter is genuinely a much worse player than you they'll all be more useful in pretty much every dungeon.

I myself think Shadow plays pretty well in raids right now, but I definitly want to move away from the current heavy reliance on haste & crit to maintain acceptable void forms. That could so easily be fixed by altering the drain curve (and compensating with a blanket nerf), but that's a discussion that seems pretty pointless with the changes announced for BfA so far.

[Deleted]

Does anyone else feel making mind flay spread SW:P to nearby targets instead of pulsing for aoe damage would just instantly fix the spec in m+? Maybe even let shadow crash spread it instead so it's more fair as a CD.

Idk why we don't have a dot spread ability at all.

[Annesh]

The play style is perfect, the numbers are strong. I don't see the issues here.

Yep, the playstyle works and the numbers are strong

ON. RAID. BOSSES.

If all you do with your shadowpriest is raid, and you're not willing to spend 5 seconds on reading comprehension of the posts you're replying to, of course you're going to be confused by people dissatisfied with the spec.

The problem is with the design of the spec when it relates to DUNGEONS. The spec is poorly designed for that content. It always has been before, but now that Mythic+ is around and Shadow's flaws (ramp-up/AoE) are worse than ever, those flaws have made the spec extremely unrewarding for people who want to push keys.

[friedmudkipz]

ON. RAID. BOSSES.

The problem is with the design of the spec when it relates to DUNGEONS. The spec is poorly designed for that content. It always has been before, but now that Mythic+ is around and Shadow's flaws (ramp-up/AoE) are worse than ever, those flaws have made the spec extremely unrewarding for people who want to push keys.

Now consider that spriest gets worse at lower key levels.

[Knifttar]

I've played shadow since i've started at the end of BC, and it's in the worst state i've ever seen it in. Haven't played priest most of legion because of this until i tried out holy, which i'm loving thoroughly.

I'd like to see an older version of shadow make a return though for sure.

I'm completely in the same spot as you. I didn't play a ton in MoP or WoD, but it still felt somewhat familiar as i played casually. Part of my problem is also thematic, in this seemingly random switch to "void" over "shadow" flavoring. Really bums me out, as I thought of myself as an Undead Shadowpriest in game for a long time, but I don't really feel that way anymore. Got benediction/anathema and cant even use it.

[pkm]

I don't know if it's a nostalgic thing but spriest just always felt off to me when devouring plague was removed. Wod was a decent time though.