or maybe a bar like druid's, with "clarity" and "madness": when you enter combat the bar is empty(your mind is clear), and your healings are normal, then you build up towards madness, increasing haste gradually, then when the bar is full you get an 8 sec buff which makes mindflay hit multiple targets and instant mind blast and healings are 20% less effective on the priest. when the buff ends you lose the accumulated haste, the bar is depleted and you can't use holy abilities for 3 seconds(like you're somewhat exhausted). this will interact nicely with shadow word: death too, and players would have to pay close attention to incoming damage and healings. i'd love to see something like this live, without that void form
If you got nothing else to do and you're enjoying it, go for it. But stay clear of this spec for endgame unless you're a masochist. They're good in Nyalotha when you have a lot of gear, but once SL hits they're going to be right back to the same problems we had at the beginning of BFA... and blizzard simply does not care. The Priest shadowlands development thread on the WoW forums has been up for almost 2 months. Blizzard has not offered a single response since the threads opening (keep in mind this is for ALL priests, not just shadow). If you're just going to use your Shadow Priest for 8.3 content, and then bench it for Slands.... go for it. Otherwise, stay clear.... Every spec is crap in Mythic+, disc is only good in raids, and Shadow is only good because of all the borrowed power soon to be gone.... Priest will most likely be the worst all around class in Shadowlands if things don't change.
Finally a shadow priest's post.Hopefully it will drag some attention to the developers and do something about it.Thank you Shadow Team of Warcraft Priests! <3
If they can completely rework Shadow into something great again, I will reconsider my reroll.
pretty much this. the entire priest community has been vocal that they want MOP/WOD playstayle and have pointed out the glaring mechanical problems of voidform for 4 years now. this isnt the class most of us rolled years back. no other class has seen such drastic changes. revert it back to MOP/WOD shadow priest. its easy the jobs already done. all they have to do is numbers tunings. thats it. it was probably the best designed spec they have ever had and they changed it for no reason.
Disclaimer: This perspective is coming from a Spriest main, who has been 1800 in 2's & 3's a few seasons, and was over 2k dungeon io in legion and is currently over 2200 io in 8.3's corruption hellscape. I mained disc in MoP, but also maintained a gearset for and knew how to play shadow. I mained disc WoD, but loved the clarity playstyle and was able to match our raid's dps whenever I got to flex shadow in BRF and HFC. I abandoned disc in legion, because it's not 1/10th the spec it was in either of the two preceding xpacs, and dove headfirst into shadow post EMN. I loved the playstyle, and had a ton of fun whenever I wasn't flexing heals for the rest of Legion. It was great in dungeons, awesome in raid, and just felt like a blast to play. Raid fights were not only a test of your skill as a raider, but also a testament to how well you knew your class and the mechanics, with your knowledge allowing you to do gross and frankly dangerous things to reach higher and crazier stacks. Every pull made you not only more practiced, but also allowed you to build up a better rhythm, increasing your average voidform length, and as such, your damage. Knowledge is power, we were mages, except crazier! BfA ruined it. We're bad at dungeons, mediocre in raid, and voidform sucks. Not only does it suck, but even if it were still good, our three main tools for extending it are all talents now, and we take none of them =/ What do we even do? Our class identity is a walking mass dispel... I get brought along for M+ keys when our core push group isn't all available at once, and I mostly serve as the desperation benchmark; our arms, havoc, and beast mastery players are desperately trying not to be "the guy who lost to a shadow priest" every run lolI want lingering insanity to be baseline, so I can take one of the neat abilities on that row and have cool voidforms, or to be able to play surrender or dark ascension instead of the protoss campaign forever. Hell, I'm likely not going to be able to cast power infusion on myself, and that makes me want to cry
On a positive note for all priests: Power Infusion being a targetable buff allows you to buff your higher dps during crucial burst periods.
I play dk, so I understand the pain of spreists and stand in solidarity. However can someone explain the issue with Void Bolt? What I see is now you can cast it during your channel, giving you extra damage by condensing the channel and cd together, not that you have to. As for point 2, for what reason would you have to cancel a channeled ability, in order to recast that same ability right after and then cast VB? VB is an instant cast, just add it during the first channel? Am I missing something?
You can't move now because you have to channel Mind Flay or else you'll lose DPS. It's OK if you're like a DH or something, but SPriest has no mobility at all.
For the people clamoring for Orbs do none of you remember how clunky it was? Having to hold Orbs was awful and when implemented it was a watered down version of the holy power style Ret was in Cata that they scapped. Think of something new completely.