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  1. #61
    Slightly off topic, but discord is nice for a multitude of reasons.
    • Pins - Easy to find information that is stickied
    • Text Chat - Generally there are people online in discord and you can get your answer quite quickly, within in seconds.
    • Voice Chat - While not necessarily used in class discords, it's great for guilds, why have a separate voice chat program when you can use the same one your class info is at?
    • Discord Bots - Some questions get answered repeatedly, something that has been a problem with every medium, since well, forever. Discord bots can be given custom commands where a user can input one and have the bot spit out info for it, we use them in the priest discord often.

    I understand the hesitance for using discord, but also understand that the majority of class discords also have a website that pairs with them. If they don't there is also wowhead/icy veins to serve as general guides, which is a good starting point for most players. Class discords exist to help players who have specific questions they either can't find the answer to, or they need a quick answer then and there.

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by dcc626 View Post
    only problem with that is how long it will take to get to that point. 2020 is a retail year, so 2021 before BC if it happens at all.
    Some of us don't care about retail. Like, at all. I know once new expansion comes out, it will beat Classic WoW in terms of most streamed game for a few weeks, and retail fanboys will be like all over again, "Oh look, Classic is dead!!! Retail has more viewers on Twitch now!!!". Well duh, an expansion just launched, and there's always massive hype behind these things. It's bound to take the spotlight at least for a little while. Once the hype dies down, however, Classic will be back on top again.

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by enzi View Post

    On shadow priests, nothing beats the TBC version of shadow priest. Absolutely nothing. It was perfection in PvE.
    How can one like TBC Shadow, but not WotLK and Cata? They are direct evolutions of the TBC Shadow design. Same spells, same playstyle. Cata SP was still the same thing as TBC Shadow, just with a few new spells on top (Mind Sear/Dispersion/baseline DP added in WotLK, Dark Archangel/Mind Spike in Cata).
    They're (short for They are) describes a group of people. "They're/They are a nice bunch of guys." Their indicates that something belongs/is related to a group of people. "Their car was all out of fuel." There refers to a location. "Let's set up camp over there." There is also no such thing as "could/should OF". The correct way is: Could/should'VE, or could/should HAVE.
    Holyfury armory

  4. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by ThrashMetalFtw View Post
    How can one like TBC Shadow, but not WotLK and Cata? They are direct evolutions of the TBC Shadow design. Same spells, same playstyle. Cata SP was still the same thing as TBC Shadow, just with a few new spells on top (Mind Sear/Dispersion/baseline DP added in WotLK, Dark Archangel/Mind Spike in Cata).
    I enjoyed the way shadow played for the most part all the way until MoP, where I think it started to unravel a bit. It's hard to say exactly why, but I feel like MoP was the beginning of the end in terms of my level of enjoyment playing the spec.

    As to why I feel TBC was the best version of shadow, it essentially boils down to how valued I felt in a group setting. People begged me to join their group, and they talked about how great it was to have a shadowpriest with them. Those were the most fun times for me, when I joined a group and everyone seemed grateful to have me.

    In general, I would prefer that Blizzard go back to that sort of class/game design. I'm aware some people hate it, but that's the version/type of the game that I like the best. Different strokes for different folks.
    "Falling from heaven is not as painful as surviving the impact."

    DPS Loss - my guild on Proudmoore
    The Old Guard - my guild on Earthen Ring
    Revenant - my guild on Echo Isles

  5. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by Kilee25 View Post
    As to why I feel TBC was the best version of shadow, it essentially boils down to how valued I felt in a group setting. People begged me to join their group, and they talked about how great it was to have a shadowpriest with them. Those were the most fun times for me, when I joined a group and everyone seemed grateful to have me.
    Exactly that!
    Shadow priest as mana battery for the group, with an exact ratio of damage to mana was the most fun idea for the spec anyone at Blizzard ever came up with.
    BC fights were long, upwards of 20 minutes. On Illidan we had 1 group with 2 shadows and those who went oom were switched to that group for a while. Fun and mana for everyone involved. Was it overpowered and essential for raiding? Absolutely! Was it a problem? I don't think so. We were used to having certain specs/classes as requirement and this rule still applies even today after all the "balancing", so I feel like we only lost something and gained nothing in return.

    With WOTLK the whole paradigm switched to, bring the player not the class and they merged everything into garbage buffs that were the same. I stopped playing SP before Wotlk and was on my druid till Pandaria were I tried SP again, but mained my rogue because SP was just a shitty mage with worse healing than other DPS specs. SP had lost all meaning by then and it gained nothing cool from BC till Draenor.
    But don't get me started on Surrender to madness, which was a fun time again but got butchered, by Mr. "no fun allowed".

    Mind Spike is such an uninspired spell and it even made Mind Blast worse because of it.
    Mind Sear was an answer to every class crying for burst AoE and Blizz caving in. In classic and BC only a few classes got that privilege.
    Dispersion was an answer to the heavy burst damage that got introduced in Wotlk. Shadowpriest was supposed to be tanky but lost that from classic to Wotlk. Shadowpriests, especially with support CC in PvP were hard to kill.

  6. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by Kilee25 View Post

    As to why I feel TBC was the best version of shadow, it essentially boils down to how valued I felt in a group setting. People begged me to join their group, and they talked about how great it was to have a shadowpriest with them. Those were the most fun times for me, when I joined a group and everyone seemed grateful to have me.
    Shadowpriests in TBC were a mana-user's best friend.



  7. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by Flay- View Post
    Shadowpriests in TBC were a mana-user's best friend.
    They were, and they built upon this in WotLK - WotLK was the best of literally ALL worlds. Hybrids put out decent DPS, and brought a TON of stuff to the raid.

    Now? Whew. Here's hoping they go back to Shadow's roots, much like they're doing with Balance Druids. I can't wait to see Insanity and Void Form GONE

  8. #68
    Definitely. Ulduir was probably the best time I ever had raiding.



  9. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by ThrashMetalFtw View Post
    How can one like TBC Shadow, but not WotLK and Cata? They are direct evolutions of the TBC Shadow design. Same spells, same playstyle. Cata SP was still the same thing as TBC Shadow, just with a few new spells on top (Mind Sear/Dispersion/baseline DP added in WotLK, Dark Archangel/Mind Spike in Cata).
    Utility was more fun than small mechanical changes in WotLK, but both were fine

    Nothing was good in Cata. Cata was fucking dogshit on every single level.

  10. #70
    Shadow since Legion has been a massive disappointment.

    I was "hardcore" (only like US top 20 type quality) from vanilla through first tier of wod. I mained shadow in raids from Wrath-Naxx through my last day logged in.

    Since then I've dabbled with the game during legion and bfa. Currently, Im full on into Classic.

    I liked the "rythmic" feeling shadow had for years. I liked in wrath how our play wasnt a rotation but one of the first non repeating priorit systems (Back when dot length was variable based on haste). I'd sit in class and day dream while pressing out 3 minutes of my rotation on a ghost keyboard on my desk.

    I like the period with 3 dots, DP on one target and SWP/VT on all. I liked when DP was a 6second dot that was applied by spending orbs. I liked when we had dark arch and had a 4set that allowed us to pump some single target burst dmg. I liked pooling my orbs for a burst. I liked dotting up the mob, keeping MB/SWD on CD and clipping MF for dps gains.

    Insanity based shadow--isn't shadow. At least not to me. They've stripped Spriest of their gameplay identity and replaced it with what I can only describe as an uninspired unengaging spammy mess. I hear we rank well on meters--so I guess after 12 years of bitching we finally got that--but at what cost? The complete gameplay identity the spec carried from BC-Mop/Wod.

    I'd really like to come back and play Mythic Shadowlands as an Spriest. But given the choice between playing a boring unfun class in difficult raid content and playing a fun class in repeated content...I suppose I'd rather enjoy pressing my buttons. Then again, CTBC is odds on going to be a totally nerfed version in 2.4.3.

    The introduction of insanity was the final nail in the coffin, but the removal of Dot Snapshotting and prior to that the hit stat (If there is one thing Classic itemization has revealed, it's "Negative Stats" create interesting choices) really rubbed me the wrong way and made playing the game a whole lot less engaging.

    And to top it all off, I came back to be casual like end of legion early BFA and as others pointed out Shadowpriest.com was gone, How2priest was gone. Its a different game now.

  11. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by marathal View Post
    Of course I miss the old Shadowpriest days, but what I mean is I miss the old days of forum activity, I miss that desire to log into SP.com to read up on Kilee's discussion thread, the days when I would go read Elitist Jerks, would come here to find answers, even WoW's forums. Things change I guess, it's a different game than when many of us started playing. I'm still around even though I mostly lurk.

    Any good impressions of what is coming, or where they may look to design us in the future?
    So you miss the old internet? Very little to do with WoW, conversation culture has evolved. If you want to discuss things, you need to go where the conversation is nowadays.

  12. #72
    The Patient marathal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Teflon View Post
    So you miss the old internet? Very little to do with WoW, conversation culture has evolved. If you want to discuss things, you need to go where the conversation is nowadays.
    Sorry, I tried going over to read Reddit. It's a scary place. I'm happy hanging out here with my 2400/9600 modem connection logged in through Prodigy.

  13. #73
    The Patient marathal's Avatar
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    I was reading through ancient history here. I can't believe its been more than 8 years since Shadowpriest dot com was closed down. Reading through the whole thread I created back then, seeing what I wrote, I really was naive about a lot of things and people. I thought a lot of what I recommended was for the best. Thinking back all those years ago now, I should have taken them up on their offer and just bought the site. Would it have ever been what it was? I honestly don't know. But I do know that back then I had a passion to help other players however I could. Was it perfect? Not really, but seeing the popularity of Classic with many, and the likelihood that Classic Burning Crusade may actually become a reality, I have to think about all of the information that was locked away in archive folders, discussions of stat weights, and spell priorities, I am sure not many will ever know exactly how much was really there.

    A bit after it all went away, I found myself no longer needed, and apparently no longer wanted too. It never stopped me from trying to help people in my own little corner of Azeroth, I've done a lot of good things, probably made a few mistakes along the way too. But I will always look back on that time when the Shadowpriest Community was the best in all of WoW. I look back, then having turned 50, and now getting closer to being 60 years old and still playing the videa gamez. The game changed, a lot of the people did too, but there are a few of us, that remember a time when things were a lot different. I guess everything now is on the Discord group. You won't find me there, I am sure that if I popped in I would find myself removed. LOL. That's the problem sometimes about being around for many years. You find out things, you realize that what you thought was happening and couldn't believe, it couldn't possibly be like that. And then you hear the truth from someone who you respect. And realize that you were a fool for believing.

    Sorry, just being nostalgic. Maybe some day I will write it all out, I have thought about it from time to time. Maybe, someday, when WoW finally comes to an end, I will nuke that bridge from orbit. It probably won't matter one way or another what some old nobody says. But there was a time, when I thought I was helping people, and just having someone say thank you was more than enough, I never did it for any notoriety, or any special perks. I was just a guy that stepped up when someone asked if anyone was interested in helping.

    Edit.

    Looks like the domain was picked up by Barrens.chat

    Guess How to Priest stopped paying for the domain, or sold it.
    Last edited by marathal; 2020-10-30 at 01:16 PM.

  14. #74
    The Patient marathal's Avatar
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    Just popping in. Since TBC is back, I had thought, oh, maybe it might be time to give the old school version that lead up to where I started playing a go. I briefly hovered over the install button, and just decided that no, that time is gone, just going back 12+ years will never bring back that feeling when I started playing. I have too much time invested in retail, and even that no longer offers any enjoyment. This will probably be the last you hear from me, and I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of the OG Shadowpriests out there that were around in the Shadowpriest dot com days, it was a different time, and the community was vastly different. Everything was unknown, and we all felt like kids at Christmas when we figured out some aspect of playing that gave us just that little extra. Having great people like Kilee that would patiently listen to people like myself that could never wrap their heads around the more complex play styles, all of the hundreds, of people asking for a simple gear check that were answered without and sarcastic comments about reading proper forum posting rules. There was only one goal, to make us the best, the class you needed on your team. Maybe like you mentioned Pandaria was the start of the downfall. And there are a few things that do stick out in my mind, the introduction of challenge dungeons, the gating of reputations behind completing other quests for reputations, the start of overly complex fights because by the time an expansion opened or a new patch dropped, all of the mechanics were worked out and there was nothing left to discover. Oh and least I forget the hold my beer achievements, Oh I see you found 5 rare artifacts, fantastic, now go find 10. Something happened somewhere prior to Warlords, when Blizzard started clamping down on community managers talking to average people, then eventually letting them go. The game has had the soul stripped away in the name of higher profit margins and less overhead, what can be reused, where can we cut corners. Is it Activision? Probably, but it could also just be that the game has gone on for one season too long, and just can't find a good way to have it's Bob Newhart ending.

    Anyway, thank you all for 7+ years here, and for any from the old site, thank you for allowing a noob player become a part of your community for awhile.

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by marathal View Post
    This will probably be the last you hear from me, and I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of the OG Shadowpriests out there that were around in the Shadowpriest dot com days, it was a different time, and the community was vastly different.
    /salute Marathal. At least we got to ride shadowpriest dot com to the end of its ride.

  16. #76
    Because of people who are stuck in the old Spriest, neither the classic nor the Voidform crowd are happy now.

    Playing on Classic right now and I realize that the best Shadowpriest will be the early days of Legion forever....or part of me simply wishes for a proper new Void class to be added finally.

  17. #77
    My dream, after Legion ended, was to have Battle of Azeroth start with an opening Priest quest at the Netherlight Temple (class hall). In the Temple are NPC shadow priests, dark zealots, and void priests. Going to each type, a brief quest chain would follow. Upon completion, the shadow priest questline would result in your proficiency in the old style of shadow priest, with an appropriate toolkit of spells and talent tree. The void priest questline would result in a Legion playstyle and talents. Dark Zealot, the mind spike/mind blast version of late Draenor. There are fans of each... and each could have their own strengths and weaknesses. Yeah... I know... balancing. But still... having various playstyles available would be sweet.
    Last edited by Hankmarvin; 2021-07-06 at 07:01 PM.

  18. #78
    Stood in the Fire
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    Some of the names in this thread bring me back to when TBC was retail.

  19. #79
    @Marathol

    I have not played the game since the end of Warlords. I did purchase Legion for both myself and my wife, but we ended up moving our home again around that time, and we left our computers behind in the move because our new home did not have any spare rooms in the house to set up our computers. We both use laptops now, but mostly for home use rather than gaming now.

    Every few months I do get an itch to set up a gaming area again and build myself a new PC, but the itch quickly dies when I realize that there's still nowhere to set it up in a "quiet" area in the house. It's always in the back of my head that it's something I want to do if life stops getting in the way, but as the years drag on it seems crazy how long it's been since I was last able to PC game properly. You don't think things will be that difficult when you're young, but now that I'm older with a family it's just become a very low priority for me, and doesn't make sense with all that's going on.

    Another big factor that's kept me from gaming much these days is my health. I'm not unduly unhealthy for my age, but maybe 5-6 years ago, I hit a point where playing wow 4-6 hours a day was _obviously_ creating major health issues for me. I was gaining weight, and would be frequently short of breath. I was also having focusing issues at work due to lack of sleep. The "gaming life" was starting to take a pretty heavy toll on me. Since I quit wow, I've had a lot more time to sleep and exercise and eat better. I've still got a lot of work to do, but it made me very reticent to start playing WoW again after looking back at pictures of myself during the height of playing the game. I was far away from where I wanted to be at the time.

    Concerning the "classic" versions of the game, I was very interested in playing Vanilla when it came out, but wasn't able to. I think that if I can ever get time, I'd like to make a character on one of those servers and level to 60 again, and maybe even do a little end game raiding if it's still a thing. I suspect it'll be pretty dead though by the time I get back around to it. Although I greatly enjoyed shadow in TBC, I don't really have a desire to go back and live that era again, as much as I do Vanilla. Vanilla to me was the more interesting of the classics due to the fact that people didn't really know what it was back then and you can still see that in some of the game design.
    @Hankmarvin

    The concept of having current wow allow you to pick which "era" of priest you'd like to play like, is really interesting and I think it would grab a lot of people's attention if it were done tastefully... but yes it's probably too much effort to balance and do something like that. Might be a resource and coding nightmare for the team sadly. But still that's a cool idea.
    "Falling from heaven is not as painful as surviving the impact."

    DPS Loss - my guild on Proudmoore
    The Old Guard - my guild on Earthen Ring
    Revenant - my guild on Echo Isles

  20. #80
    The Patient marathal's Avatar
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    @Hankmarvin @Kilee25 @mindp

    Wow, Mindplague, and Hankmarvin, there are some names going way back. We had a great time back then. Kilee, I think you are right, we have all gotten older, and real life just demands more from us. No telling what will become of the game when we see the Q3 earnings report. The future is not looking very promising.

    Thank you guys for a lot of fun and laughs.

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