9.0 General Discussion

[MadamSerenity]

What else could have caused it? Maybe the breaking of the bell thing from helya?

OKAY. Maybe this is reaching. Danuser already said that this reaches all the way back to ICC. What if she saw made a deal with the Jailer in the Maw then, but couldn't fulfill it till Legion. She knew she needed to gain leadership to fulfill her plan. She got the lantern from Helya to capture Eyir, and then Genn smashed it. What if Helya told her that smashing that would cause problems with Death which also benefits Helya. She baited Genn to follow her thinking he was doing the right thing, and after that happened, death itself broke. From that point, her only plan was to cause as much death as possible which is why she burned Teldressil, and kept causing big scale death around her. All the death helped her continue to get overpowered to the point she could kick Bolvar's ass and open up the Shadowlands. At least that makes sense to me.

[razorpax]

You're confusing understandable with justified and morally acceptable.

You can understand someone while simultaneously thoroughly disagreeing with them.

And no, i wouldn't consider your examples incomprehensible. Unacceptable, sure.



More of a detailed plan of what he was going to do, really. Nobody took it serious back then. Then he proceeded to follow through with it.

I’m not

Her life consists of

Her long dead sister being alive
Her people being safe
No war once the legion was defeated
Essentially being immortal
Loving simp doing all her dirty work

But she decided to strike a deal with the jailer to kill everyone because.....she’s mad at the living??

That’s a trope for every bad guy in like 90% of writing “I can’t have this so nobody can”

The only thing from this writing is the fact that she is a bad guy and her redemption will be idiotic and take place after nathanos dies

Besides as we know it she’s been a pawn since the broken shore

[TheFirstOnes]

Oh lord...

"Her life consists of" Let's see what this is about?

"Her long dead sister being alive" Who she doesn't even care about. Not like she would anyway, after Alleria's very lengthy disappearance and shit.

"Her people being safe" You mean the same people she kept raising endlessly because they were dying out rather quickly VIA by decomposing completely or by getting murdered due to the constant Wars going on throughout Azeroth?

"No war once the legion was defeated" AHAHAHAHA, this is just plain wrong. The Alliance and Horde was was going to happen post-Legion either way. Sylvanas merely just jumped right into it.

"Essentially being immortal" She, nor the Forsaken are Immortal. She's OP, but she can be killed. That's why her defeat was so humiliating in Legion. That is, unless the Jailer straight up gave her immortality in SL, though I doubt it. Not even Gul'dan gained Immortality after gaining all these Legion amps and shit.

"Loving simp doing all her dirty work" Aren't they together though?

"But she decided to strike a deal with the jailer to kill everyone because.....she’s mad at the living??" She made the pact with him right after Arthas died. Ya know? When she committed suicide BECAUSE she felt like there was nothing to live for anymore? The whole Maw shit scared tf out of her, and make her fear Death, yeah. Didn't mean she gained a new appreciation for life though. She still hated the fuck out of it. Idk why you're so shocked by her motivations now tbh. She hates life, but without the fear of Death now, because of her pact with the Jailer.

[huth]

"No war once the legion was defeated" AHAHAHAHA, this is just plain wrong. The Alliance and Horde was was going to happen post-Legion either way. Sylvanas merely just jumped right into it.

Let's not forget that at the beginning of BfA, the war against the Legion was over for what... a few weeks? A few months? It's not like they had a long period of peace.

"Essentially being immortal" She, nor the Forsaken are Immortal. She's OP, but she can be killed. That's why her defeat was so humiliating in Legion. That is, unless the Jailer straight up gave her immortality in SL, though I doubt it. Not even Gul'dan gained Immortality after gaining all these Legion amps and shit.

Well, and that whole decomposing thing. She was still going to inevitably die at some point.

[Hitei]

Because VF cannot be balanced. It haste/crit reliance make it weak and short early expansion, and very strong later with all the extra stats and other systems applied. So ye, Orbs were bland af, but at least they worked properly, w/o overly relying on stats or other things. Shadow was awarded a Worst Spec of Alpha award by pretty much every streamer/YouTuber (same state it was during first tier of BfA), and bringing back Devouring Plague changed nothing. So ye, no wonder peeps want Orbs back, even if they are glorified combo points. Personally, I also want VF to be gone, or at least turned into a major cd.

This is part of my problem with the "revert spriests" argument though. A lot of the things people seem to point to as weaknesses/problems of legion+ spriest were just as bad if not worse in the older system. Like the haste and ramp up arguments are ones that are brought up very frequently, but I wonder if the reason people are bringing them up is because their idea of "MoP shadow priest" has been completely overwritten by the state shadow priests were in at the very end of that expansion, rather than the complete view of shadow's state in that expansion.

That is, "MoP shadow was great!" doesn't actually mean "MoP shadow was great!" it means "5.4 geared shadow was great!". Shadow has been haste dependent long before VF got involved. In early MoP patches there was the exact same problem you have in early legion patches, or early BfA patches. Shadow felt slow and extremely ramp up based then too. If you didn't get lucky on divine insights (which were also tied to haste scaling as a SWP proc) the start of fights was agonizing. MSV/HoF shadow felt bad. ToT shadow felt okay. SoO shadow felt strong.

I saw people do this exact same thing word for word with Rogues when they switched combat to Outlaw. People complaining about how Outlaw was terrible and its dependency on haste made it feel awful and slow in early patches and they should just revert the spec back to combat! Except that that haste dependency had been something rogues had been complaining about since burning crusade, because they were ALWAYS haste dependent and combat especially had ALWAYS felt painfully slow and energy starved early in expansions, and then super strong and spammy at the end of expansions.

This isn't a flaw with VF or Legion's shadow design, it's a problem with the fundamental shadow kit design elements (DoTs, DoT-based procs, build-systems) and one that was just as present in MoP. Really, it's a problem with fundamental class design, because this same problem exists across many different classes and has nothing to do with any particular spec's design, or expansion's design philosophy. Fire has the same issue with crit, many classes have the same issue with haste, in the earliest expansions healers and tanks had the same issue with mp5/spirit/dodge/armor/etc.

tl;dr If your problem with current Shadow is the expansion-length scaling issue or variance in how well gameplay feels by virtue of haste dependence, you're not going to fix that by removing VF. Shadow Orbs and DP was also NOT balanced for that and just as bad, only with a slightly different spin. But I don't know how you could even feasibly fix that kind of meta design issue unless you want to remove the idea of secondary stats and homogenize gear to just damage output/health/etc. Because then you can normalize things like crit and haste potential so that you're fast quick flowing both at the start of the expansion and end.

Good you are voicing your opinion, but 70% dislikes vf. Mmo is not the only source like I said. Even a 60 talents to make it an option.. would be a welcome change.

There have been multiple polls this year so it's not realy something new.. I never liked Legion shadow priest tbh, Mop shadow was the pinnicle for me and I had fun.

I'm not opposed to the talent option, but that doesn't exactly solve any issue. If VF works out numerically superior, you're going to have the same complaints because it's "mandatory", if it works out inferior anyone who likes it will do the same.

[tristannarutofan]

Okay then that makes more sense. They wouldn't be anywhere near the Shadowlands.

Yep they said the sl is for mortals. Other powers have their own form of afterlife. .

I believe nzoth may have something up his sleeve. Seeing all realities includes the infinite ones where he died. However its possible he was ok with revealing his trump card cus he thought it was the best shot, and while he is DEAD that doesnt mean he has to stay that way. If we can go to sl thrn sl can prob come to us. And ardenweld is dedicated to resurrecting spirits. So stands to reason the void lords might have a way to bring them back.

Way i see it nzoth was like "well this is the first time my chances are over 60%. They havent been that good in 20k years, so ill do ot and IF i fail ot just means the lords will praise me for almost winning and give me more backup when they send me back"

- - - Updated - - -

Glad for hiteis analysis

I think its important to note that EVERY expansion has huge stat differences start to finish and it affects ALL classes. In wrath holy paaldins had so much crit they didnt need mana anymore.

If u tell me "this class isnt strong when it has weak stats" that sounds like good game design to me. Imagine if classes were playing like max lvl at start of expansion, by the end youd have 80% hast and crit

[Dracullus]

Some people speculated Thursday, but Beta or at least invite wave must be tomorrow right? Otherwise I don't get why they released all these blue post to hyp.. I mean inform us about Beta content already.

[Skildar]

Some people speculated Thursday, but Beta or at least invite wave must be tomorrow right? Otherwise I don't get why they released all these blue post to hyp.. I mean inform us about Beta content already.

not everyone wants to invest time reading the data mined content. Some people just like to play the game and get their news from official channels.

I feel like the blue posts are necessary and pretty well done as everyone can get informed about the different covenants from their game launcher.

[Dracullus]

not everyone wants to invest time reading the data mined content. Some people just like to play the game and get their news from official channels.

I feel like the blue posts are necessary and pretty well done as everyone can get informed about the different covenants from their game launcher.

Yeah, I know, but timing feel strange, usually (I mean during SL testing, they never bothered with so detailed info before) they do these blue post day before or even same day they release content to test. Anyway, I'm starting hyping up for tomorrow.

[Plehnard]

Outside of MAYBE her saying "Her brothers devoured her", there's no sign of her being an Old God. Maybe that weird skull tentacle thing at the top right portion of the Old Gods pic in Chronicles Vol 3 is Xal'atath, but who fucking knows anymore...

Calling some one "brother" usually means he's an equal in some sort. But it's only a small clue, I'll give you that.

[Makabreska]

tl;dr If your problem with current Shadow is the expansion-length scaling issue or variance in how well gameplay feels by virtue of haste dependence, you're not going to fix that by removing VF. Shadow Orbs and DP was also NOT balanced for that and just as bad, only with a slightly different spin. But I don't know how you could even feasibly fix that kind of meta design issue unless you want to remove the idea of secondary stats and homogenize gear to just damage output/health/etc. Because then you can normalize things like crit and haste potential so that you're fast quick flowing both at the start of the expansion and end.

No. There is no comparison between VF and Orbs when it comes to stats. Just look how VF works! At the beginning of xpac we can push it to maaaaybe 25 stacks, it's easily double that time at the end. And it is an inherent design flaw, because VF stat scaling is ridiculous (spriests best stat scaling in-game), to the point of giving it multiple nerfs to keep shadow in line. The system was flawed since Legion, especially with Mass Hysteria and S2M. Good players could produce ridiculous numbers, so you can't buff VF, or else similar situation will happen. Just look at Za'qul, when spriests get tons of free haste:



You really think they could produce similar results with Orbs?

[Alanar]

This is part of my problem with the "revert spriests" argument though. A lot of the things people seem to point to as weaknesses/problems of legion+ spriest were just as bad if not worse in the older system. Like the haste and ramp up arguments are ones that are brought up very frequently, but I wonder if the reason people are bringing them up is because their idea of "MoP shadow priest" has been completely overwritten by the state shadow priests were in at the very end of that expansion, rather than the complete view of shadow's state in that expansion.

That is, "MoP shadow was great!" doesn't actually mean "MoP shadow was great!" it means "5.4 geared shadow was great!". Shadow has been haste dependent long before VF got involved. In early MoP patches there was the exact same problem you have in early legion patches, or early BfA patches. Shadow felt slow and extremely ramp up based then too. If you didn't get lucky on divine insights (which were also tied to haste scaling as a SWP proc) the start of fights was agonizing. MSV/HoF shadow felt bad. ToT shadow felt okay. SoO shadow felt strong.

I saw people do this exact same thing word for word with Rogues when they switched combat to Outlaw. People complaining about how Outlaw was terrible and its dependency on haste made it feel awful and slow in early patches and they should just revert the spec back to combat! Except that that haste dependency had been something rogues had been complaining about since burning crusade, because they were ALWAYS haste dependent and combat especially had ALWAYS felt painfully slow and energy starved early in expansions, and then super strong and spammy at the end of expansions.

This isn't a flaw with VF or Legion's shadow design, it's a problem with the fundamental shadow kit design elements (DoTs, DoT-based procs, build-systems) and one that was just as present in MoP. Really, it's a problem with fundamental class design, because this same problem exists across many different classes and has nothing to do with any particular spec's design, or expansion's design philosophy. Fire has the same issue with crit, many classes have the same issue with haste, in the earliest expansions healers and tanks had the same issue with mp5/spirit/dodge/armor/etc.

tl;dr If your problem with current Shadow is the expansion-length scaling issue or variance in how well gameplay feels by virtue of haste dependence, you're not going to fix that by removing VF. Shadow Orbs and DP was also NOT balanced for that and just as bad, only with a slightly different spin. But I don't know how you could even feasibly fix that kind of meta design issue unless you want to remove the idea of secondary stats and homogenize gear to just damage output/health/etc. Because then you can normalize things like crit and haste potential so that you're fast quick flowing both at the start of the expansion and end.


I'm not opposed to the talent option, but that doesn't exactly solve any issue. If VF works out numerically superior, you're going to have the same complaints because it's "mandatory", if it works out inferior anyone who likes it will do the same.

The button line is that vf is not fun, it wasnt fun in legion and it wasnt fun in bfa. This is my opinion, a talent option is just an example but I am on the side of removibg the damn thing.

Something something mass hysteria/chorus.

[Hitei]

No. There is no comparison between VF and Orbs when it comes to stats. Just look how VF works! At the beginning of xpac we can push it to maaaaybe 25 stacks, it's easily double that time at the end. And it is an inherent design flaw, because VF stat scaling is ridiculous (spriests best stat scaling in-game), to the point of giving it multiple nerfs to keep shadow in line. The system was flawed since Legion, especially with Mass Hysteria and S2M. Good players could produce ridiculous numbers, so you can't buff VF, or else similar situation will happen. Just look at Za'qul, when spriests get tons of free haste:

You are shifting goal posts. Your proposition was that Orbs " worked properly w/o overly relying on stats or other things.". This is simply false. The same inherent design flaw you are complaining about existed with Orbs. You could swap out MoP shadow with BfA shadow, and you'd have similar results. Shadow would be garbage and feel bad in the first half of tiers, and then feel strong in the back end. It has nothing to do with Legion, because again, it's a core design problem with secondary stats, not an issue with Void Form.

A singular encounter being stacked for a spec does not give any indication of a spec's design viability, nor does it imply that the design is somehow broken, it simply shows you that there are some fights on which certain classes are very strong.

You really think they could produce similar results with Orbs?

I just explained to you that similar results were already produced with Orbs, or even with an entirely different class with a completely different set of spells. Orbs are not a solution because the problem isn't VF, it's the variation created by secondary stat reset. The only difference between Shadow's progression in BfA/Legion, and Shadow's progression in MoP, is that the VF versions have strong cleave. So instead of feeling completely worthless for a couple tiers and then much better for a couple tiers, you feel completely worthless for a couple tiers (but good in some fights) and then much better for a couple tiers (and godly in some fights).

Switching to an inferior system that far too many classes already overcrowd is, in absolutely no way, a good design answer to a spec underperforming at expansion start, and overperforming at expansion end.

[Raetary]

They need to update the human paladin mount, it's beyond horrendous.

[Makabreska]

@Hitei That example was to show how ridiculously Shadow scales with haste. And how is VF not a problem, when its core mechanic makes stats scale so ridiculously well? How do we balance VF and make it not suck first 2 tiers, and then be so insanely strong rest of xpac, that it has to be nerfed several time to be kept in line? It's a balancing nightmare, one which Blizz for some reason tries to maintain. I do keep close eye on SL Alpha, and Shadow right now is universally panned (same as the start of BfA), with people crying for removal of VF (and no, not necessarily going back to Orbs, but even then they just prefer them over that VF mess).

[Santandame]

OKAY. Maybe this is reaching. Danuser already said that this reaches all the way back to ICC. What if she saw made a deal with the Jailer in the Maw then, but couldn't fulfill it till Legion. She knew she needed to gain leadership to fulfill her plan. She got the lantern from Helya to capture Eyir, and then Genn smashed it. What if Helya told her that smashing that would cause problems with Death which also benefits Helya. She baited Genn to follow her thinking he was doing the right thing, and after that happened, death itself broke. From that point, her only plan was to cause as much death as possible which is why she burned Teldressil, and kept causing big scale death around her. All the death helped her continue to get overpowered to the point she could kick Bolvar's ass and open up the Shadowlands. At least that makes sense to me.

Then surely she could have just broke it herself instead of creating this convoluted goose chase for Genn to end up doing it?

I think you are reaching here.

[Sondrelk]

They need to update the human paladin mount, it's beyond horrendous.

I guess you could argue that the legion class mount was that update, but I agree, they should out their best foot forward on all fronts pertaining to introductory experience for new players, and warlock and paladin class mount is one of those.

[Hitei]

How do we balance VF and make it not suck first 2 tiers, and then be so insanely strong rest of xpac, that it has to be nerfed several time to be kept in line? It's a balancing nightmare, one which Blizz for some reason tries to maintain. I do keep close eye on SL Alpha, and Shadow right now is universally panned (same as the start of BfA), with people crying for removal of VF (and no, not necessarily going back to Orbs, but even then they just prefer them over that VF mess).

VF already has an elapsed time coefficient and the problem here is essentially that the higher haste you have the longer you can exist in it, and the longer you exist in it the higher haste you have, i.e. a positive feedback loop. Make that time factor act more exponentially, with lowered insanity drain early on and multiplying drain later on. Now you have an easier initial VF at low haste levels and an ensured cutoff at higher haste levels because haste can't keep up with the exponential growth, so even a theoretical buff that doubles your haste won't get you leagues beyond what you can regularly do in high end gear, because you're right up against that slope.

Alternatively buff VF stacking and then set a max stack cap. Haste/gear continues to make VF stronger by virtue of allowing it to last longer and get off more spells/damage in it, but it no longer feeds back into itself by doubling dipping haste with subsequent stacks. Your early game is stronger because of the better stacks, and your late game doesn't spiral as hard.

And how is VF not a problem, when its core mechanic makes stats scale so ridiculously well?

Because you're going to have the same problem regardless, but shadow priests go from bad to <some arbitrary balance level above that> instead of from bad to <top of the pack>. In either situation you aren't solving the balance problem, and the orbs still play shitty at the low end. You're still going to have to figure out a way to rebalance that system also--so that shadow priests aren't terrible at the start that also doesn't allow their default haste-bound kit to catapult them farther up the meters later on.

[Makabreska]

Because you're going to have the same problem regardless, but shadow priests go from bad to <some arbitrary balance level above that> instead of from bad to <top of the pack>. In either situation you aren't solving the balance problem, and the orbs still play shitty at the low end. You're still going to have to figure out a way to rebalance that system also--so that shadow priests aren't terrible at the start that also doesn't allow their default haste-bound kit to catapult them farther up the meters later on.

No you won't have the same problem. You take VF away, you remove ridiculous stat scaling, and make spec much easier to balance, and not play like shit with building up insanity, having 20 sec VF when you can actually do dmg and then dropping out of it. Not sure how you equalize balancing with VF to balancing WoD Shadow gameplay. Every high profile player out there and majority of Alpha testers want VF out, or drastically changed.

[Hitei]

No you won't have the same problem. You take VF away, you remove ridiculous stat scaling, and make spec much easier to balance, and not play like shit with building up insanity, having 20 sec VF when you can actually do dmg and then dropping out of it. Not sure how you equalize balancing with VF to balancing WoD Shadow gameplay. Like every high profile player out there and majority of testers want VF out, or drastically changed.

I don't know how else to get it through to you, my guy. Void Form didn't exist in MoP. They still had stat scaling issues, they just weren't ever top of the chart. Rogues do not have Void Form, they still have ridiculous stat scaling issues.

I just explained to you that the balance is already there, it just needs to be tuned correctly. And I've already pointed out to you (multiple times) that even if you remove VF, the entire kit is haste-locked. You are still going to be/play like absolute shit at expansion start in low haste gear, and you are still going to perform factors better in end of expansion haste levels. Ignoring mana and hybrid tax, that same thing would happen even if you swapped in Wrath or BC's shadow. Just like it happens every single expansion to rogues.

I'm guessing that you didn't play shadow much before the iterations, because

and not play like shit with building up insanity, having 20 sec VF when you can actually do dmg and then dropping out of it.

This is exactly what Shadow has always been like. It played like shit building SW, it played like shit building SW and Orbs, and it plays like shit building VF. I just don't know what to tell you. It has always had this problem. It has no more to do with Void Form than rogue's haste problems have to do with being pirate themed and having RtB.