Shadow Priest for 10.0 suggestions

[Loutzi]

You must be smoking that strong Zandalari shit, cause shadow was an absolute disaster zone in BFA.

Being in voidform for 90% of the time was mighty fun

[Echeyakee]

Not sure how much fun can be extracted from a class that literally had it's core ripped out, with next to nothing done to dress the gaping hole. The entire class identity and all it's mechanics were based on knaifu and her procs and effects, and it was painfully obvious how deficient and malformed it was on it's own.

Class was on life support and suffering painful convulsions. I don't see any other apt way to describe what was happening. Each patch cycle brought sweeping changes to itemization and desired stats. Performance of the spec would range from competing with tanks during progression to smugly questioning if other specs are even needed towards the end of the patch, constantly at the whim of next minor changes to some like azerite traits.

Then again, people can find anything fun...

[Aydinx2]

First off, lets not have yet another class revamp, ok? We have, for the first time since MoP, a shadow spec that it's designed with some planning done beforehand, so let's not throw a tantrum for no reason.

No, let's have a revamp. The dot playstyle just doesnt work in M+, unless you get a bandaid tool to instantly spread dots (like Enh Shamans spread Flame Shock). The problem is that SPriests get it from a talent and they have it baseline.

It feels terrible to play, especially when you gotta count the amount of adds and add or drop spells based on that.

My proposal:

Get rid of Shadow Word Pain and Vampiric Touch. Make us generate insanity from directly casting damaging spells. Then, have us spend it on Devouring Plague (the only dot we keep). Then let us spread DP with Mind Blast.

This already takes more effort to spread a dot than Enh Shamans have to do, but it feels fair considering its a spender instead of a builder.

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Seems like you really either need mind sear to do real damage or perhaps let Sn apply all dots on the target. I imagine #2 would be more likely, and there's no reason you couldn't balance those numbers to work once shadowflame prism is gone. Shadow would be back to to the ghost spewing class but without all the horrid buildup of BFA

I dislike Searing Nightmare because it doesn't do anything to promote the most fun aspect of Shadow Priests: Sending a lot of floaty ghosts to your target.
Seeing that army of ghosts fly over feels amazing and you just know youre doing your job right when its a lot of them.

They should just have Mind Blast automatically spread dots. We're gonna lose legendaries and the current talents/cov-abilities/tier anyways so they can take the effort to fix it, or at the very least just add new things so that a non searing-nightmare playstyle becomes viable.

[Sarkli83]

From my understanding, what we have now in regards to rotation and how shadow plays overall, will not change in 10.0

[Ashana Darkmoon]

From my understanding, what we have now in regards to rotation and how shadow plays overall, will not change in 10.0

Well it's going to have to change some. The spec is mega propped up by shadowflame prism and cov stuff.

There's a 0% chance they get rid of Swp and VT though, those are like core spriest abilities!

The crazy part to me is still just how much more complicated it is to play shadow than basically any other spec I've tried. So many choices to make on pull, so many buttons...

I really just don't see an AE solution that isn't letting us quickly spread dots to stuff, and not just SWP.

[marathal]

I really just don't see an AE solution that isn't letting us quickly spread dots to stuff, and not just SWP.

Remember the old days when you needed to be running a threat meter because you ran the risk of pulling off the tank? Yeah, good times, I would love to see them again

[Neuroticaine]

I'd prefer to have Legion Shadow back. That was peak fun for WoW.

[Caprias]

Remember the old days when you needed to be running a threat meter because you ran the risk of pulling off the tank? Yeah, good times, I would love to see them again

You can play classic/tbcc right now.

I personally would like a bit more than pressing 2 buttons though.

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I'd prefer to have Legion Shadow back. That was peak fun for WoW.

yup, 1 minute voidform rotations with Shadowy Apparitions machine gunning was fun to play and look at, only issue that needed fixing was M+ viability.
I think Blizz doesn't like classes with such a high skill ceiling though since missing/not being fast enough was extremely punishing.

[Aydinx2]

From my understanding, what we have now in regards to rotation and how shadow plays overall, will not change in 10.0

It will change at least somewhat. The only way it won't change is if the best talent choices in the new trees are exactly the same abilities/tuning that we run with now, and I doubt that it will be.

Hopefully some new talent will shake things up.

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I really just don't see an AE solution that isn't letting us quickly spread dots to stuff, and not just SWP.

Enhancement Shamans can spread Flame Shock to 3 new targets with a single Lava Lash. Just give priests the same effect on Mind Blast.
Then we just need something that quickly lets us deal damage to the dotted targets.

Maybe replace the Mind Link or Searing Nightmare talent with something that lets Mind Sear deal bonus damage to dotted targets, or have Devouring Plague radiate bonus damage to dotted targets (although that would require generating 50 insanity quickly on every pull).

The most annoying part is that the talents are literally just band aids that give us the damage we need in M+ but they completely ruin the rotation. Single target is perfect imo and AoE should be just 1 more button since we already have to deal with DoT uptime/spreading.

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Remember the old days when you needed to be running a threat meter because you ran the risk of pulling off the tank? Yeah, good times, I would love to see them again

Fire Mages still have that.

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I'd prefer to have Legion Shadow back. That was peak fun for WoW.

Except it was literally unplayable in M+ and no pug ever wanted you with them. Hell, my guild runs didn't take me.

[PsychoSe7eN]

I've loved Shadow priests back in the day and I love them now. Especially since now it's confirmed since the revamp that it's literally a void spec rather than your typical shadow spec in terms of lore and gameplay is cool like full on burst damage in a short amount of time. I really never had a problem with sp since the beginning and this is coming from someone (me) always having max level priest as an alternative char.

[azshanna]

These are my wishes for next expansion:
1) Give us some reliable baes aoe dmg, I am not expecting sth like survival hunters or destro locks but sth which is not garbage would be great!
2) Give back mind spike so we can kill low hp targets without ramping up.
3) Our mastery is pretty good in single target or 2-3 target but its garbage for aoe and spike dmg on adds.
4) Make dispersion either an immunity like aspect of turtle or lower the dmg reduction and allow us to keep dpsing!
5) A little more balanced dmg during cd and without them. Right now if we use cd and get forced to do some mechanics our dps is totally ruined and as far as I know some other specs have similar problem.
6) A better synergy between getting insanity and spending it. At low gear it takes time to build insanity which is understandable but right now Im mostly capped during cds and its kinda wasted

One of the main problems I have which made me stay away from M+ is doting! In a pug you need to predict how many mobs the tank is going to pull and count them, then check dps cd of other ppl to predict if they are going to melt the pack with heavy aoe cds or not so I will decide if it worth doting them! In best scenario I will start rapming up and starting doing some aoe which is still hit like wet noodles in compare of most classes.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I think Blizz doesn't like classes with such a high skill ceiling though since missing/not being fast enough was extremely punishing.

Shadow is still in this position now really, huge variance between being good and bad at it esp in dungeons

[Neuroticaine]

Except it was literally unplayable in M+ and no pug ever wanted you with them. Hell, my guild runs didn't take me.

Fair enough, but Mythic + personally does not even cross my mind until Monday night and I realize I still need to squeeze in a 15 for the week. I'd rather the game not be designed around a disease.

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I think Blizz doesn't like classes with such a high skill ceiling though since missing/not being fast enough was extremely punishing.

I will admit that it did suck having my DPS ruined by a sudden lag spike, for sure. But the playstyle was still extremely fun and rewarding.

[Caprias]

Shadow is still in this position now really, huge variance between being good and bad at it esp in dungeons

Not even close in comparison to EN StM spriest.

[Sunstrider420]

I really believe they need to revamp this spec back to WotLK style of gameplay with some slight tweaks. I know it wasn’t the most flashy play style, but it was simple and super effective. It would mean getting rid of the Insanity power bar and to make Devouring Plague a basic part of our DoT rotation.
Ultimately they need to make our DoTs stronger.

Another change I could see is make Vampiric Embrace a very niche cooldown where using it makes your abilities stronger (flat DPS cooldown) and also heals the raid at the same time, with the healing ramping up as you do more damage. With that it does kind of sound broken, but maybe you make it a gigachad CD and have it on 3-4 minutes. After that, make Shadowfiend a minor DPS CD that is on 1.5 to 2min (make a talent to reduce it).

And one more thing, bring back the WotLK mind flay appearance and sound! That was incredible and spooky sounding lol. Or at the least make a glyph for the old appearance.

What are your all’s thoughts?

I loved wotlk shadow game play, I mained shadow in ICC and was nearly top of the dps meter every time. Shadow was never the same after the cata revamp. They probably wouldn’t change it back but at least we have wotlk classic to look forward to!

[nvaelz]

I really believe they need to revamp this spec back to WotLK style of gameplay with some slight tweaks. I know it wasn’t the most flashy play style, but it was simple and super effective. It would mean getting rid of the Insanity power bar and to make Devouring Plague a basic part of our DoT rotation.
Ultimately they need to make our DoTs stronger.

Another change I could see is make Vampiric Embrace a very niche cooldown where using it makes your abilities stronger (flat DPS cooldown) and also heals the raid at the same time, with the healing ramping up as you do more damage. With that it does kind of sound broken, but maybe you make it a gigachad CD and have it on 3-4 minutes. After that, make Shadowfiend a minor DPS CD that is on 1.5 to 2min (make a talent to reduce it).

And one more thing, bring back the WotLK mind flay appearance and sound! That was incredible and spooky sounding lol. Or at the least make a glyph for the old appearance.

What are your all’s thoughts?

I'm not so concerned with how the spells are but if my dots don't do any damage in DF I'll not play the game.
Dotting 5 people in a BG, in SL, feels so unrewarding I question why I'm not just single target dpsing 100% of the time.

[Alanar]

I hope Legion shadow will never return ever..

[ramsemon]

That was incredible and spooky sounding lol.

[bloodmoth13]

Honestly they only need a few changes.

Make shadow crash a no cd spender in place of mind sear and make mind sear a free minute cd that is reduced each time VT deals damage. Make shadow crash a baseline ability instead of a talent

Delete mind spike it adds nothing.

Move utility to the class tree and mind games to the spec tree where damnation is. Delete damnation, it's boring, or make it a PvP talent.

Now shadow crash is aoe only because it competes with dp for single target, mind sear won't be used for single target regardless because it's a channel, we get easy and reliable dots in aoe, psychic link is always up. We have more room free for building our own rotation.

I could go deeper but this would be enough to fix some major issues.

[czarek]

Honestly they only need a few changes.

Make shadow crash a no cd spender in place of mind sear and make mind sear a free minute cd that is reduced each time VT deals damage. Make shadow crash a baseline ability instead of a talent

Delete mind spike it adds nothing.

Move utility to the class tree and mind games to the spec tree where damnation is. Delete damnation, it's boring, or make it a PvP talent.

Now shadow crash is aoe only because it competes with dp for single target, mind sear won't be used for single target regardless because it's a channel, we get easy and reliable dots in aoe, psychic link is always up. We have more room free for building our own rotation.

I could go deeper but this would be enough to fix some major issues.

Mind spike is ok for single target but with it aoe is burned to the ground. Mind seer 1min CD and shadow crash main ability ? So you want to replace those spells lol? This change nothin except spell names tbh. I do like actual gameplay.