Why was the Spriest resource changed from mana to insanity?

[DarkAmbient]

For the sake of changing. I've yet to find someone who prefers Insanity over Shadow Orbs. MoP / WoD was peak SP and Blizzard just ruined it with the horrible Insanity / Void Form mechanic.

The best thing they could do with shadow priest is roll it back to how it was in Mists. Give me back devouring plague and my shadow ravens. Void form can go to hell. So can the new shadow form. Why the fuck am I a purple steam machine?

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Insanity is a fun idea for class fantasy but it kind of feels undermined without the old Surrender to Madness talent to create a consequence of how bad it can really be when fully embraced.

[naeblis495]

you people want to use forces of darkness and not have any consequenses ?

thematically , if you choose the power that relate to darkness , demons and all that, you will gain great power but will suffer from it .

it make perfect sense for shadow priest to be borderline insane , you worship dark entities god damnit. Don't like that fantasy ? spec holy or roll a mage

now if we are talking about how the insanity ressource is used in game that's another story

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Thematically it was fairly identical to Affliction. You throw a couple shadow damage dots and spam filler, you even had the same kind of alternate resource(Soul Shards vs. Shadow Orbs). And Shadow was long overdue a rework, it had been very stale same stuff since Cataclysm.

They made Shadow more about Void magic, which has not appeared in any of the other class designs, which includes insanity, controlling minds, tentacles and so on(AKA Old Gods).

The Artifact also tied into this very well as the dagger in Legion gave the community a lot of lore behind what's coming through the whispers, and community figured out the dagger is part of a void creature of some sort. Now in BfA, the dagger is found to be somehow linked to the new 2-boss raid, which most definitely has something to do with the only Old God we have not seen yet in WoW, N'zoth.

Uh what. Shadow was FINALLY in a good place in Cataclysm, only to get reworked going into MoP. Then they spent the next 4 years changing that playstyle, until Shadow was finally in a good spot in the middle of WoD again (the traditional AS playstyle, not the CoP one), and what do you know, another completele redesign for Legion...


Shadow got its 2 redesigns when we needed it the very least. Cata and WoD are the by far best designed versions of Shadow. We DO need another redesign or fix now though, because Shadow has been dogshit for all of Legion and BFA. Numbers have been fine sure, but the playstyle have most certainly not.

This is not a Shadow specific issue though. Blizzard has a tendencey to leave broken and shitty specs as they are for ages, but breaking and completely redesigning specs that finally feel good. Most "best designs" for every single spec got redesigned the very next expansion.

[Lurker1]

Class fantasy.

I hated it too. As someone with a shadow priest who knows her well enough to know that whatever she is she isn't insane, it was a huge turnoff.

I think it has more to do with the void driveing are shadow priests insane more then anything.The void whispers will do that.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

WotLK spriest will always be the best version imo. You had some group utility with replenishment and old VE, and you had to be careful with not getting your shadowfiend killed or you'd be dangerously close to OOM. Legion/BfA spriest is a big letdown, especially the latter.

WotLK SP was just a worse version of Cata. Or, Cata was just a better version of WotLK. They had the exact same playstyle. Cata simply had the added bonuses of MF ticks refreshing SW:P (unless that was a thing in WotLK aswell, dont remember at this point), and Cata having the passive Shadow orb mechanic that just buffed your MB and dot dmg. The most important thing was the game system changes going into Cata though. Universal Haste and Crit scaling for all classes.

That change alone instantly makes Cata Shadow miles better than WotLK, because the spec just didn't work before that. Remember doing the same Dps in t9 gear that you did in t7 gear 2 tiers earlier, because Shadow had zero scaling? Yes I remember. Blizz had to bandaid fix Shadow in ToGC by giving us an improvised version of Haste scaling, just to make the spec somewhat viable.

[docterfreeze]

Shadow priests used to be the psychic caster, but with this new lore direction it seems blizzard wanted to make them the void caster.

[rohoz]

WotLK SP was just a worse version of Cata. Or, Cata was just a better version of WotLK. They had the exact same playstyle. Cata simply had the added bonuses of MF ticks refreshing SW:P (unless that was a thing in WotLK aswell, dont remember at this point), and Cata having the passive Shadow orb mechanic that just buffed your MB and dot dmg. The most important thing was the game system changes going into Cata though. Universal Haste and Crit scaling for all classes.

That change alone instantly makes Cata Shadow miles better than WotLK, because the spec just didn't work before that. Remember doing the same Dps in t9 gear that you did in t7 gear 2 tiers earlier, because Shadow had zero scaling? Yes I remember. Blizz had to bandaid fix Shadow in ToGC by giving us an improvised version of Haste scaling, just to make the spec somewhat viable.

remember how shadow was unplayable without the full icc set with the faster mind flay channel? pepperidge farm remembers

[Ramz]

I don’t think your character is insane. They are tapping into the void and building the void insanity within them. The insanity building is the whispering of the void into your mind and you harness that and weaponise it

My shadow priestess was never related to void of any sorts, nor Old gods. :/

[Spazlord]

I play priest since BC, and I like the current insanity flavour, it's fast and has a fun dynamic switching between build/spend phases. It makes more sense to me for a priest to be void oriented, harnessing the insanity of their twisted magic until it's no longer manageable and then exploding in a mess of tentacles and going crazy until they are spent.

Casting shadow spells because .. shadow spells, is pretty tame. Shadow orbs were boring and my priest was a healer through Cata, MoP and WoD because it was boring to play shadow.

Over all I preferred the BC model where we were a support class / mana battery and had a good off heal capability. Priest felt very flexible back then.

[mickybrighteyes]

I know this might be a funny thread to make considering some of the abilities that spriests have had for a long time

Yeah... between mind control, shadow word pain, and mind flay alone we had Shadow Priest taking a swan dive into the darker end of class fantasy.

But as to the reason for shift from mana? Well I think they were tweaking ALL the dps builds more fluidly play without needing to worry about regen down time and wanted to try and maintain some notion of various class fantasy ideas... and maybe they touched on some game/story with priestly/cleric based sanity ideas or mental fortitude

[rohoz]

Yeah... between mind control, shadow word pain, and mind flay alone we had Shadow Priest taking a swan dive into the darker end of class fantasy.

But as to the reason for shift from mana? Well I think they were tweaking ALL the dps builds more fluidly play without needing to worry about regen down time and wanted to try and maintain some notion of various class fantasy ideas... and maybe they touched on some game/story with priestly/cleric based sanity ideas or mental fortitude

It was more a nerf to hybrid healing than anything.

[mickybrighteyes]

It was more a nerf to hybrid healing than anything.

yet similar changes were made across basically all the dps classes trying to smooth out resource management. Numerous spells on classes still sporting mana had costs removed or effects that grant regen of some sort were built into their tool kits.

I think bigger hits on hybrid performance was centered around skill restriction to specialization (skill pruning happening around the same shift as well).

The same time Shadow Priest got insanity was the same time Fury warrior's kit got changed to only one skill for spending rage

[Zyky]

The longer you treat with madness, the more likely it is you become insane.

[Doffen]

Really like the change they did.

You are mastering and using the void, instead of it mastering you. If you go away from Surrender to Madness that is

[Hobbidaggy]

My shadow priestess was never related to void of any sorts, nor Old gods. :/

What do you think the shadow you were using was? You were using abilities like vampiric embrace and shadow word death and a shadow form....those are pretty void based things to me. You literally are enveloping your body in void shadow power.

[RobertMugabe]

I guess they were seen as too similar to affliction warlocks.

And honestly mana is pointless for dps at this point, besides arcane mages and some healing spells

[Palapop]

Because it's SHADOW PRIEST. Not VOID PRIEST.

Ooops... wait, what? o.O

[Thelxi]

It's one of the things that bothers me most about the entire game tbh. Spriest was actually in a good place with shadow orbs before the aggressive changes to not only the rotation but also the theme of the spec. I never thought of my priest of going insane rotationally, but here we are years later my priest is still losing her mind every few seconds.

Don't get me started on void form.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Because if you think that a priest should be a dps, you clearly are insame and to reflect that the resource of your fever dream was altered to insanity.

Jokes aside though, it has a few advantages:
- Different ways to restrict your healing spell as a dps without influencing your dps resources. Like monk and paladin as well.
- It can feel more in-depth for the class fantasy (if you agree with that is another topic).
- It's easier to represent a build-up and sustain feature that way.

Why it was done? Because they wanted the gameplay of spriests to be something else than it was before. Again, if we agree with that is an entirely different topic..