How to Fix Shadow Priest AoE

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[@strikerzero9995]

S1 mind sear spender was some of the best aoe shadowpriest i've played and when you get mind devourer procs to go with them *drools*

[@lightsfixture9149]

TBH i really enjoyed DF Season 1 with Mind Sear. Yes the PL was better damage and even better priority but I enjoyed having a button i could dump all my insanity into and see my damage to up. Also on the lucky channels where a bunch of ghosts would spawn was really fun to see.

[@garenmccroskey4776]

I really liked the BFA Shadowpriest playstyle. I enjoyed the mini game of trying to stay on Void Form as long as you could, I enjoyed the number of Shadowy Apparitions that spewed from my character during big pulls, and I enjoyed having the haste buff when I was outside of Void Form.

[@chrisdejesus4655]

Bfa/legion shadow was easily the most fun in aoe for me. The natural high haste we had made dotting up packs, in my opinion, less annoying then it is now. Also our dots were actually powerful and we didnt have to constantly refresh them. The multi-dotting playstyle is what drew me to shadow initially, i really hope they revisist that.

[@helzing5114]

i personally think shadow crash should work like mages ice nova or be a targeted ground effect instead of a clunky slow moving missile and have 2 charges

[@paradox3499]

SC working like frost nova would be strate up suic*dal but i agree on the 2 charges point

[@Stusteh]

Ice nova is a ranged spell. i think a reduced cooldown would be good. Give it a cast time and dot instantly, then remove the cast time from touch so u can spread easier while the tank is grouping mobs. Another idea would get rid of shadow crash dotting altogether and have devoiring plague put up 4 dots per cast. You could pool insanity to 100 at the end of each pull and double plague for the same amount of dots shadow crash gives us. This would remove the stress of tanks randomly pulling when shadow crash is down, or when new mobs spawn on encounters.

[@hikori3941]

The most fun I ever had as shadow in aoe was at the end of bfa when our stats got crazy with corruptions and we had a shadowy apparition army. It looked and felt so cool. Early 10.1 actually felt pretty close to that. I really enjoy playing shadow as funnel aoe with voidform, whether that’s through apparitions or psychic link. Our dot management definitely needs work to make it function smoothly. I just hope they actually iterate this time instead of a whole rework.

[@Yerdone92]

Miss the army😢

[@ConnorGrummer]

I loved Voidform haste increase Shadow Priest. It really felt like going insane periodically.

[@mattroguesmith]

agreed - that wave of apparitions felt so good.

[@Yerdone92]

@@mattroguesmith best part was they came from dot crits and all we really had to do was maintain SWP 😭

[@mellowsunset7730]

I kinda like current shadow. I like psychic link. I like that mind spike and mind flay are both viable in AOE. Dark ascension is the most flavorless, boring ability in WOW and void eruption/voidbolt are two of my absolute favorites so I really can't wait until Dark ascension is made more interesting, removed, or no longer meta.

[@thomaswang4268]

Another two ideas that popped out of my head in terms of improving AOE rotation: 1) The psychic link - mind sear choice node definitely seems good. Would it be good if the mind sear talent reads that it replaces Holy Nova and benefits from rhapsody in some way (not exactly the same way given it's a channel) and be a chunky hitter even if not a spender? Holy Nova would have to be baseline in the class in some way though for this to really work. 2) To feel good, inescapable torment probably needs to hit harder and have some interaction of CDR with mind blast casts, mind flay ticks/mind spike casts, and something else. I think disc priests love inescapable torment because you get shadow covenant for extra damage an healing and you get a lot of CDR from smite, mind blast, and penance. The double smite window from the 4-piece makes it feel really good to play around. For shadow a damage buff window might be too much, but having it hit harder at base could make up for not having something like that.

[@jacklewis2019]

havent played shadow for super long but my favourite was shadowlands in situations where you had time to dot everything and could voidform without really using searing nightmare so your screen was flooded with appariions, chaning the mindbender felt satisfying and made SW:D more involved and also being able to, for fun play with surrender to madness which was tonnes of fun even if it was never really that great, probably why mists of tirna scite was my favourite dungeon tbh esp. the maze section. even tho its 99% cosmetic i wish there would be a choice node or even possibly a glyph though that seems a stretch for appartions to spawn a second on a crit instead of dealing 100% damage since it has never felt as good since that change.

[@mirandalew2420]

I really loved late-expansion legion, when I finally got it and it was "easy". That being said, BFA era was probably the most fun while being effective. Shadowlands was so hit or miss, and I have accepted being middle tier this go around. I might be weird, but I loved trying to stay in VF for as long as possible, and even Surrender to Madness. It was a high skill threshold, and it took about 2 seasons for me to get it in Legion, but it was so satisfying when you got it right.

[@user-mq8jl5wt6v]

delete shadow crash

[@sombrego2260]

Or just make it either a Spender and/or an instant explosion instead of a projectile

[@kthomas107t]

@@sombrego2260this I like psychic link just need the stupid arc gone. Make it like the other placeable that don’t have that stupid artillery launch

[@CelesteMimi]

I miss end o legion Shadow Priest the billions of apparitions was so amazing

[@Ryan-sn3uo]

For me, visual feedback matters. When I played Spriest in SL, I enjoyed the barrage of Shadowy Apparitions that bombarded the enemies while tentacles swirled around you during the high phases, it tells you that you're doing something right. Right now half of the talents and my damage are just numbers on a bar, there's barely any satisfaction when I'm doing AoE damage because I'm just doing my ST rotation. It doesn't matter if it was Psychic Link, Inescapable Torment, Idol of N'zoth, none of them provide any visual feedback. Your idea of transforming Shadowy Apparitions to be part of our AoE damage would solve this for me. If you see a lot of ghosts = you are doing AoE damage correctly. Or we can just add Halo as another AoE method for Spriest to spread DoTs too, it's one of the best looking abilities for Priests. I'm probably not the best person to speak on this, but I preferred they reign in the amount of CD and let us go back to a DoT focus spec. Do we really need to have PI, Void Erupt/Dark Evan, Void Torrent, Mind Games, Mindbender, Shadow Crash all at once? The spec felt more manageable when the talent tree let me opt out of Shadow Crash or Shadowfiend and give me options to substitute them. If 2% less damage means I give myself a more manageable rotation, that means bad players get more leeway to enjoy the gameplay, while good players get to enjoy skill expression with good CD management. But here's a controversial take: I wasn't the biggest fan of Mind Sear Searing Nightmare gameplay, but I hated it because of Mind Sear, not Searing Nightmare. I thought Mind Sear felt like a janky redundant version of an ability that I loved pressing - Mind Flay. I secretly enjoyed the Searing Nightmare part, because you click a button and everyone was dotted up with SW:Pain, and there was no CD like Shadow Crash, so you could just spam it and it would do a pulse like explosion (visual feedback). All through SL I just secretly wanted them to remove Mind Sear, and let us use Searing Nightmare during Mind Flay instead. I doubt any other Spriest would agree with this dumb take, so feel free to ignore it. While we don't have to go back to SL version of Mind Sear Searing Nightmare spam, I do prefer to move on from this era where SW:Pain was a DoT nobody cared about anymore because Misery is mandatory, or when you were only invited cuz people wanted your Twin Sun Priestess PI really badly. Hell, I don't even like the fact that Voidform as a concept exists when we already have Shadowform visually. But I can put aside my personal desires, and let the more seasoned Spriest players communicate to Blizz what the spec needs to feel more satisfying. Maybe in that version, I might still find something enjoyable.

[@Fezzmunda]

i prefer the searing nightmare playstyle, we actually had to think about insanity and if to use it knowing another pack was about to come up that needed spamming down, todays spriest has 1 spender, wtf is the point of having a resource to spend it on 1 thing. making shadow crash a spender would save nearly every problem in my opinion, but i like your thoughts on basically everything

[@Byhythloh]

I would love to see Shadowy Apparitions reworked to not be a slow moving npc that RP walks into the pack. Leave the implementation as is, but make the shadows like when you pop Voidform, and those shadowy missiles fly out. Think about how cool it would look if those just flew out in place of the shadows, at that speed, when you MB, DP or SWP.

[@TheFabulousEnby]

I think square routing damage overtime effects is a good idea especially if Shadow crash can spread beyond 8. I do think the idea of either a shattering apparitions or psychic link build being viable with the apparition exploding would be awesome. I do think that shadow crash needs to be a stronger first damaged AOE ability cuz I think that's one area that shadow also Lacks

[@chr1sssss88]

After gearing the shit out of my DH, i think its time to go back to my Shadow which was my main for the last 2 seasons. Thank you for posting new Shadow Priests contents. Just wanna ask, what would you prefer DA or VE? for M+ and for Raid.

[@clearing4157]

Agree with most things, will have to see how the change coming up next reset affects us though, damagewise. I'd love for more options to manage dots however, like you said. Mistiming a shadow crash os the tank having to move mid-travel due to a random ground effect sucks so much, and is often out of our control outside of bosses that have timers.

[@gerhardjanzen1057]

My Best shadow iteration was in legion when i played the mage tower with surrender to Madness😂 That was truly the moment i fell in love with the Shadowpriest

[@CoversIncorporated]

I personally thought they nailed the play style of shadow in S1 of Dragonflight personally, I know people didn’t like the button bloat but the talent build variety, flow of combat, and “insane” insanity generation felt so fluid

[@Publikwow]

Yeah i think it was a good start but needed some iteration, was sad that they scrapped it more or less

[@CoversIncorporated]

@@Publikwow same, personally I wish we still had the instant cast Spikes all the time for movement, and I wish they would bake Mind Games into another ability, perhaps every time it’s off CD your mind blast deals the damage of mindgames and applies it’s effect, solves button bloat while still keeping it’s function

[@paradox3499]

About Shadow AoE; I quite liked searing nightmare tbh, ofc it wasnt the most fun we had but it was balanced and the ability to press another bind than Devoring Plague to spend our Insanity was a good idea imo. That being said the AoE i loved the most was the Shadowy Apparition minigun style, it felt good and it looked good

[@kieke187]

As for dot spreading and upkeep why not give shadow crash a second charge? Would also help if you missed the firsy one for whatever reason.

[@Zulej112]

Maybe giving shadow crash 2 charges and making the dot extension uncapped. Or at least remove the AOE talent just bake it into the talent

[@brandssdnarb]

If your doing 15-20+ keys on tyranical the packs die so fast the dots can't even tick. I was thinking about an all in detonate dots button, with a small CD.

[@djnatZOMG]

I loved the 10.0.5 shadowpriest. Mind sear, 60% link (but devouring plague and swd out of it), better insanity generation from spells, istant mind spike procs to help with movement. That was one of the best iterations ever imho, if not the very best.

[@Mostly.Malacai]

@Publikwow Keep up the good work, sir. What would you think about combining Psychic link and Mental Decay, where Mind Blast would do 20-40% damage to all targets regardless of having dots ( most likely capped on 8+). Targets with dots would get 2-3s extension and 1-2 targets without dots would get VT and Pain replicated on them. This could work as a tuning nob for low target count cleave, allowing already ramping up aoe while spreading dots, where dots would take over on larger target counts. Spreading dots via direct spells is Fire Mage Ignite feature, so its not foreign and it could potentially get rid of that awkward dot setup via Shadow Crash by either increasing the spread target count or including other spells for the "psychic link" cleave. If the dots are tuned bad but still enable further effects, they are at least just up spreading passively. Searing Nightmare was clunky when global cd decoupled from Mind Sear duration. Mind Sear as a spender was either so strong that applying dots was a dps loss or weaker than Psychic link. Neither of these should return. We used to be a spec about juggling as much dots as possible on as much targets as possible, the reworks slapped juggling procs onto it. Thats too much clowning. Id rather get rid of tab target Misery clicker chore, have dots up effortlessly and juggle meaningful procs or Voidform uptime minigame.

[@Publikwow]

Hm would definitely be _very_ strong and maybe too strong for a single talent point? not sure

[@Mostly.Malacai]

@@Publikwow Thought as much. Either new mid section of the tree with multiple talents or base kit mechanic. Ty.

[@_blasfemy]

favorite iteration of AOE? VERY easily WoTLK, specifically tier 10/final 2 phases. thank you for bringing shadow priest some love. i must say i have been feeling super lonely on the class, despite playing it in WoTLK, retail, SoD and Era currently... been feeling super lost to be honest. but i'm glad to be raiding on wrath. i wish the spec felt at all viable in any other direction but i will say that i haven't given retail a fair try yet.. largely due to just feeling overwhelmed with how vastly different the class is

[@azartrus]

Have to agree with these points. I miss having an army of shadowy apparitions and I still dont understand why they have not increased the travel speed. Unfortunately there are a lot of times where a mob will die and my ghosts will still be on their way there only to dissolve. I think icicles or glacial spike would be a good animation for this where they start off slow but immediately fly towards the target.

[@TJR123]

Not a shadow priest this expac, but your stuff is so good I still find myself watching your content

[@Elbereth_TV]

SW:D or DP should 100% spread 3 dots to non afflicted targets, or refresh the lowest, it's such a simple fix

[@yaretifordis9043]

Dragonflight S1 with Searing Nightmare was my favorite AOE style from this expansion. It was extremely rewarding spending Insanity on it, and watching the DPS skyrocket to the top of the meters. The only downside was building the initial insanity. It also caused some issues holding searing nightmare so you could roll into the next pack with full insanity, which sometimes felt boring/useless.

[@fenaxtv]

I really like the Dragonflight S2 ghosts. It is visually great as well. Some rotational spells are so visually / sound bland, that it is a bit boring sometimes. Stuff like mind games, mind spike, mind blast, devouring plague have no effects, sound design on those is pretty mediocre as well. Ghosts just make it pleasing to the eye

[@gerry1265]

Shadow Crash has no cooldown but each cast of it causes "Exhaustion". Exhaustion causes your max Insanity to reduce by ~15%. Exhaustion wears off by 1% every 2s or by 1% when a mob with your VT on it dies.

[@MrEggerz]

I defo think there needs to be a rotation change or just another but to press in AoE. As clunky Searing Nightmare was in SL I did enjoy it, it felt powerful to press be that the sound and watching your dps on the meters :D

[@zumzici1234]

Been thinking for a bit and i think the easiest way to fix the aoe would be to make VT spreadable, kinda like ignite, but with the remaining timer from the original VT. That way you can just crash and start dpsing. That + make crash be instant, instead of the 1.5s delay

[@lurklimit8378]

I really like Psychic Link. I would uncapp Shadow Crash dots and either speed it up, give it a instant aoe effect, or give it two charges

[@lueer3810]

Shadow apparitions exploding looks really fun !

[@helzing5114]

any iteration, the spec is just enjoyable for me.

[@crazyphoenickss]

I don't necessarily have a fun iteration for Spriest. I do have some ideas, though. Rework the Idols, all but the tentacle idol. Left side get rid of the pet garbage, that idol would be for DoTs being able to execute n do more damage. Middle left idol where you have the NZoth stuff would be for making your DoTs, themselves, splashing 10-20% of damage they deal on to all nearby targets. Yogg Saron or whatever Idol would instead be a Shadowy Apparition Idol letting you machine gun Shadowy Apparitions. It would triple the amount of Apparitions you spawn regularly and crit, it would make them move faster, and it would make them able to splash damage to all nearby targets they hit. Make it so every DoT tick has a 15/30% chance to spawn apparitions, make it so crits have a 100% chance to spawn apparitions, and since they would be moving 100% faster, ez fun times. Make DoTs hit way harder, including Mind Flay. Make the Mind Flay: Insanity let you able to cast it while moving, and make the Mind Spike: Insanity proc make your spikes instant cast. Literally fixed Spriest in a paragraph.

[@jameskeohane6053]

I think for me I much prefer Psychic Link overall, but I would enjoy my DoTs to feel more powerful. I also honestly wouldn't be horribly upset if we moved away from Mindbender builds as well, I'd enjoy more of my power coming from my DoTs and mind flays/mind spikes then the mind flays. Shadowy Apparitions as well would be something I'd enjoy seeing becoming more powerful into the kit as well, I like the aesthetic of it and I would love to have them feel more impactful, but one looses so much single target to really make them shine right now which is frustrating. Something that would be nice is getting those DoTs out and feeling more powerful, using Screams of the Void as a big AoE amp for damage there and having link as a more just minor supplement to it rather than it being the center stage of our AoE and the added insanity gen from ghosts to help us pump out more DP to proc that more and maybe weave in the DoT extension to the apparitions connecting to targets with DoT maybe? Nothing that will make it that they are up permanently (They should fall off and there should be need to re-apply) but maybe to give it long enough time that when you do reapply the mobs have thinned down to a more manageable level with Shadow Crash? Idol wise I do kinda wish they felt a little more impactful. C'Thun and Yogg I like the feel they give, that insanity and old god power bleeding out and spawning around you as you fight. N'Zoth just doesn't feel great in general though I don't really know what to suggest to make it feel more impactful, it's just like how you said "It's sorta just there". Y'Shaarj I just never really liked in general but I also don't really enjoy mindbender/shadowfiend much in general lol

[@nesto2947]

Maybe they can add dot application to divine star along with shadow crash. Or buff idol of c'thun, it looks really cool when it procs but in the end it's terrible damage

[@_RIPLI]

Started to play Shadow in Shadowlands as an alt, but dont remember how it was played back then (did mostly raids), and after that played half of s1 dragonflight, but didnt enjoy mind seer spam, s2 was quite enjoyable and i wish to play that again, so for me it's s2 (maybe mostly because of voidform lol)

[@syprus3687]

I'd like to see shadow crash travel faster. Also thank you publik for what you do

[@piotrczajkowski7139]

I really enjoyed Searing Pain on Ardenweald big pulls. Seeing all those numbers was feeling good, but overall management of it was terrible. Also Mind Bender mini game with duration feels nice. Gives a bit of Legion Void Form vibe. S2 DF felt really good with how easy it was to pick it up and play well without thinking and calculating all the time about management. There was only SC CD to look after and rest was quite seamless.

[@Locust66]

I know this means another semi rework but all I want is aoe Spender that unleashes powerful ghosties and multiple charge low cd Shadow crash.

[@Zaughon]

Personally i preferred the S2 version. It might be slightly scewed by the fact that we just did so much damage. But the set bonus there just felt like it fit with the spec, and it was nice to play with. I hate the current S3 set bonus centered around SW:Death, and actually gave up on my priest for now, because i didn't enjoy it at all.

[@thomaswang4268]

Would a talent that causes devouring plague to spread a vamp touch be fun, like with disc spreading purge with penance?

[@Publikwow]

Could be an interesting direction for Unfurling Darkness tbh

[@djaggers07]

Shadow crash needs a rework, give it a halo animation and press once to expand it outward spreading dots then press again to contract it back in and explode dealing aoe burst damage.

[@davidbrasie446]

Do something with shadow crash like someone said on here making it like ice nova from frost mage. Also i can agree to make our dots feel more meaningful and have the ability to extend dots duration with shadowy apparations. P.S. make shadowy apparations do more damage. Its hands down the coolest aethestic in the game. (it should never be weak)

[@xhandril]

i liked BfA voidform. the hasty playstyle was just realy satisfying

[@OlmanWillo]

I personally want hard to spread but meaningful dots with mond sear back.

[@Antagonisten]

Legion i had tons of fun. And in Shadowlands it was very good season 2. And in the last seasons of Shadowlands it was also very good.

[@ilnastic]

I didn't like mind sear, but I think removing it was a mistake without... adding something in its place. Crash caps at 8 targets and in addition to the slow flight time feels really bad on say.... a double saurid pack pull like in AD (do the dots even prio higher health mobs or anything?).So IMHO.... maybe... make some kind of sear and empowered sear mechanic. Maybe empowered sear if above 50% insanity or smth? I just feels bad where every other class can press buttons and pew aoe either uncapped or on floor instant or moving while doing dmg projectiles etc. and SP gets like.... essentially half an aoe spell. I'm not counting halo here, but.... sure, we can count it as another half, though, I really feel it doesn't feel very significant. Just feels bad.

[@MusicalShaman]

Shadow seems so lost at the moment. Psychic link and ghosts are basically the same effect split up. Cast mindlbast/DP and have it spread to targets with vampiric touch. Sure PL also gets void torrent and SW:D, but at the core it's still the same. Our AoE is just single target cleave with 0 visuals Can we just get a reworked Mind Sear from DF S1? Costs between 25-100 insanity and summons a void tendril that casts mid sear for us. We can add to this be having the mind sear instead deal damage in the form of a mini DP, giving mastery bonus. Mind Devourer procs could have been fixed by simply reducing the cost by 50 instead of fishing for a free full channel. This way, we get cool tentacle visuals, aren't locked down to channel for 5+ seconds and then we still cleave through apparitions on VT targets.

[@jamesrebollos4427]

I really want to see ghosts slowly run to and decimate enemies. Just imagine shadowy apparitions doing reasonable aoe damage. I don't care if they're slow as long as they go kaboom upon impact. The slow run adds to the suspense of inevitable demise imo

[@jimcarrey2866]

I definetly agree that dot management doesn't feel good, relying solely on shadow crash kills the spec for me. Shadowy apparitions could work for aoe. I want void form to be a central part of the spec, and give it tentacles (like wings) popping out of the back of the my character damn it!

[@joseph-ft7qk]

Make shadow crash instant and/or targetable rather than a skill shot Another bandaid fix for now would be to give us mind bomb back so we have some cc in m+ without having to run into melee. Maybe mind bomb applies dots to 5 targets or something too? I feel pretty good in m+ but i definitely have to work harder than other specs. We do have huge off heals and dispels. My aoe rotation priority is overwhelming at times. I want to maintain dots and spend insanity, but I also need to keep MB and SWD off cd for mindbender cleave.

[@Ezera6]

I miss Dark Void. I don't mind psychic link, in fact I rather like it. But quickly applying vamp/swp can be really challenging.

[@siXti66]

we should get singularity like ability/talent and call it mind explosion

[@noreason6]

I personally think they should make psychic link basekit and give you the ability to spec into searing nightmare/mindflaysear -- call mind spike mind crash or something if you run spike.

[@noreason6]

I'd just like to add, my favourite iteration is probably shadowy apparitions crit build in late legion with the machine gun style bomb of shadows going out

[@andrewharrison5801]

I actually didnt mind Searing Nightmares, it was at the very least more engaging to play that *just* Mind Searing. That said, I kinda like the current fire and forget Psychic Link playstyle. I just wish Shadow Crash had a shorter cd. Obviously, i'd give it all up for Legion VF...

[@thisisd2891]

End of BFA is what made me fall in love with the spec, i toughed it through shadowlands and hated dragonflight version. I feel like we either need our dots and extension through void form back or we need a button. psychic link is cool but just feels mid to me when i have to use shadow crash to activate it. its like we have 1000 wetnoodles that give us aoe that all add up to some number of decent aoe damage where most other specs just have a button or 2 that does it for them.

[@blaise4120]

I like the psychic link play style but hate shadow crash, would rather it be a 1sec cast with a ground target or something or even look to make DP have an effect were it spreads VP unto x amount of targets around the target and make it during dark ascension it increases dot timers by 2 sec or something.

[@lueer3810]

I miss bfa playstyle :(

[@ZenNeophyte]

Personally, I miss bfa when apparitions spawned from sw:p, and you had dark void to spread it. It even had the bonus of if the target had sw:p already, it just did more damage.

[@constelus89]

Shadow crash should go I hate it since it was a talent. Bring back the talent that spreads dots to all targets as a targeted aoe. You know that one that used to spread shadow word pain in legion. Also buffff single target. I stoped playing shadow this expac and mained disc for dungeons cause it’s way balanced and fun to play. PS: mindbender pet spec is bs, I want the choice to not be a pet spec. make dots powerful, maybe limit to three targets and give shadow a relevant aoe instead.

[@scriptis8227]

I started spriest in shadowlands so I didn't get to play with all the variations of shadow ape, but everytime I run BRH and get to the gauntlet I really miss searing nightmare T-T

[@scriptis8227]

AOE** not ape lol

[@tamassari2905]

Dragonflight S1 was the most fun, we had sear, we had instant spikes.. i could do things while moving. Aoe is an issue, but so is the casttime on everything even on our bursts

[@vazsix1]

I say make DP a short cd with procs that finish the cd as a way to spread them, bring back mind sear or nightmare as an aoe spender, make a new single target spender or rework mind spike to be just that. I would also like to see a change in dot app and not feel like i need shadow crash and misery in all scenarios

[@rwcannon]

How to fix... make shadow apparitions explode for a small radius on impact and deal more damage per dot on the mob they land on. Make shadow crash an aoe explosive dot applied similar to arcane explosion. Walk in, hit. Dotted. Then you can spam to go from 5target to 8 to 10... whatever... already in range for fear interrupt. And make capstone talents consume insanity to be on demand buttons. That deal more damage the more insanity consumed. And give us better defensives and a KICK!

[@Ibetrolling1337]

I feel WoD shadow AoE was good with shadowy apps felt hella strong and fun

[@GodlyNoodle]

I’m hoping for dots reduced dmg after 8 targets, devouring plague spreads dots, psychic link and apparitions reduced beyond 8 targets. Shadow crash uncapped

[@gapplebees9295]

As a off and on casual shadow priest alt enjoyer, I loved the build last season. I don't like the pet builds and I didn't like Mind Sear. I just want to go fucking ham every 2 min with Voidform, PI, and fire out a ton of ghosty bois. I was super sad when Shadow got nerfed because MD was 'too powerful'. Looking forward to messing around with Shadow again in S4!

[@gravythehuman]

hey thats me in the atal :3

[@jabbs23]

Shadowlands Shadow was the best, uncapped AoE Searing Nightmare, i'm not sure why they removed that as a choice

[@pontusfeldt3982]

I only play shadow when apparitions/void eruption are viable. They are core shadow talents to me

[@jakekinzly5162]

Mind Sear should return as a choice with Psychic Link. Hero Path system in TWW should take Shadows Damage profile and split between Periodic Damage focused vs Non-Periodic damage focused between Voidweaver being Periodic Damage and Archon being Non-Periodic. Mind Sear and Voidform would lean towards Periodic damage with dot damage scaling as was the case with Mass Hysteria artifact talent in Legion. Psychic Link and Dark Ascension would lean towards Non-Periodic damage. The main rotational spell that would have revolve around Periodic damage would be Devouring Plague that would find its enhancements in the Voidweaver talent tree. The main rotational spell that would revolve around Non-Periodic damage would be Shadow Word: Death that would find its enhancements in the Archon talent tree. Essentially, take all these different ways to deal damage be it in single target or AOE as you have eluded too and allow the Hero Path system to become the tool to separate them to be enhanced respectively per the hero path damage profile option. So all Shadow Priests have access to the core spells, but they will behave vastly different based on damage profile which would determine their role within the damage rotation where some spells will not be highly prioritized and other might be dropped completely. For Shadowy Apparitions, change Idol of Yogg-Saron to cause Shadow Word: Death to Spawn a Shadowy Apparition for every target affected by your Shadow Word: Pain and now all Shadowy Apparitions explode and deal 10-15% of their damage to up to 4 additional enemies. Now all Shadowy Apparition talents feed into the main Idol and it becomes meaningful as they can be spawned a lot more often in conjunction with current methods to spawn them and they have the added AOE damage component which makes sense from the power of what the Idols should do. Idol of N’Zoth should increase the Periodic Damage the target takes when it’s afflicted with its Echo effect. Then that damage pools up and when it collapses, the additional damage you dealt to it will explode to all other nearby targets. So Yogg-Saron is exploding AOE damage from lots of ghosts and N’Zoth is exploding from your periodic damage. Idol of Y’Shaarj should keep the theme where it changes things up based on factors. But remove the current state/health of target and instead pivot to affect all our Mind Spells. Enhance each Mind Spell accordingly. - Mind Flay = Cast while moving - Mind Blast = Additional charge - Mind Spike = Cast time reduced by 50% (or instant cast) - Mind Sear = Critical Strikes spawn a Shadowy Apparition - Mindbender = Attacks faster and horrify target after a duration or when it expires - Mindgames = Mind Spells refresh’s Mindgames duration - Mind Shift (new spell) = Cools down 100% faster. Mind Shift would be a displacement spell to swap physical locations of a target. The Idols should be impactful enough to really change how you do damage but not cumbersome of simply adding another button. Oh and either remove Shadow Crash or add another spell to compete with it. I would like Cascade or Unholy Nova to be the replacement in interacting with our Dot Spreading mechanic.

[@Sorino00]

Best iteration was 10.0.5 Shadow! Mindsear and PL at the same time with instant void spikes

[@froggeraj33]

Bring back 10.0 shadow priest spender mindsear felt so good

[@RamblingJosh]

I don't really like Psychic Link, it just feels like it doesn't line up with all the things Shadow is historically known for. At one point I was playing Fury Warrior and Shadow Priest as my 2 characters, and it was a little silly how similar the specs felt. I think it fits Fury's fantasy to be hitting whirlwind and cleaving like crazy, but on Shadow Priest it kind of feels like "I don't know how a SPriest should AoE, but they need to, so here it is"

[@zombieraccoons4509]

I really enjoy psychic link and dislike mind sear greatly. I hope it doesnt come back unless the two are perfectly balanced so I can always pick psychic link.

[@Avdbz]

Lets be honest here, the things that people draw to spriest are 1) strong dots 2) shadowy apparations. Give me decent dotdmg and the visual of all my ghostieboys and we ll Be good

[@Fezzmunda]

honestly i think if they just made shadow crash a spender for 55 insanity would make the class so much better, would solve for if the tank pulls more and you need to dot quick, would solve for the crash cap, cause you could just cast it quickly twice and sacrifice a DP. i dont know why we build a resource to literally just spend it on 1 spell.....id rather searing nightmare over how it plays now

[@TheMMObro]

Searing nightmare was cool, but felt a little boring to be pressing just 2 buttons. I mean, I know there was setup, but once you had everything rolling, you were pressing 2 buttons

[@kayarnewold801]

Where can I grab your shadow unit frames profile?😊

[@Publikwow]

Should be more or less updated: pastebin.com/wcU6pAj0

[@klEm0z]

Forever missing legion shadow. Also I've always felt like shadow should be a 3 dot spec

[@pascalnick4394]

cant they just give mindblast a talent that every 3 usages of mindblast, if you use it on a target that has dots applied on it, then it would spread them on up to 8 targets or something^^ that would be amazing so you could manage your dots way better i guess...but what do i know i dont play shadow priest xD

[@dacid22]

I totally LOVED shadow priest in season one, i was sold and it was going to be my main, but the changes made for the class completely destroyed it for me it is so damn boring to play now compared to before. i want the old shadow back.

[@peshodobrev911]

I have been maining affliction for quite some time(years) and now decided to try Spriest. The minute i started playing on class trial i was absolutely tilted how ez is to apply dots for spriest.. u have shadow crash , u apply 2 at the same cast, u can extend them (affliction tiers set bruh) you can even make a cast instant. And with that being sayd people still complain about it. I get the spec is not at best spot rn but try affliction before you talk about bad shadowpriest dotting mechanics. Not to mention aff is THE dot spec and cant compare with spriest..

[@Publikwow]

In practice though those DoTs are almost purely maintenance, they don't usually deal any significant kind of damage.

[@Kriple123]

To be fair I loved Shadowlands searing nightmare spender aoe , just wish it costs less or if it's instant cast so we don't have to channel it or maybe if we could proc way more something like destro warlock, Also season 4 tier set bonus should maybe be added to talent tree? So we could have passive aoe all the time?

[@Aw3s0me117]

MIND SEAR MIND SEAR MIND SEAR

[@Locust66]

I also just think an AoE spender just makes sense on aoe. I don't like pure single target for aoe I think psychic link should supplement main aoe.

[@Reqlayy]

For me has to be 8.3 shadow for aoe. Although I'm a sucker for legion and bfa voidform.

[@bscheur7412]

God I miss 8.3 shadow priest. I’ve never had so much fun on a spec, and since then I’ve been desperately rerolling trying to find something similar.

[@bscheur7412]

Whether you liked legion/BFA voidform or not (fwiw it was my favorite spec in wow’s history) I think AOE actually felt really smooth with simple strong apparitions and void bolt constantly extending dots. It was essentially what happens when dots are very strong, since apparitions were just extensions of SWP. It wasn’t broken in aoe at all, but it was solid, accessible, and relatively painless. I suppose it’s true that it was much less successful in lower keys, and without a button like the meme beam it would have lacked on demand burst. I so miss the positive feedback loop of more crit/haste->more apparitions->more crit/haste. It was so satisfying to see all the little ghosties go crazy when VF ended.

[@SonOfTheImam]

Godtier vid my man💯! Do you think these problems are solved with hero talents? And if not are you going to make a touch up video? Keep up the great work ❤

[@Publikwow]

Some of them? But it really depends on tuning

[@emmakleis1364]

I miss bfa spriest. Voidform was cool then

[@dipl3ft172]

It really shouldn’t be this hard for blizzard to balance shadow AOE, just give us an option for an insanity spender in AOE, maybe have it be a choice mode with PL

[@Publikwow]

I think the challenge comes in with everyone seemingly wanting/liking something totally different (check the comments on this video :P)

[@dipl3ft172]

@@Publikwow that is a very good point haha. I do hope to see another version of an insanity AOE spender at some point, mind sear as a spender I think felt a tad awkward and SN obviously had its issues, I do like your idea a lot too of tying Shadowy Apparitions into AOE more

[@Ltnuggetv3]

how about some classes have uncapped aoe & others don’t. that in itself breaks game balance

[@Publikwow]

In the current state I think I agree, it would feel better though if anyone that is capped is a GOD at that target cap though. But today thats just not true

[@Handcannon77]

Well since their little target capping experiment in SL(in order to create different niches and damage profiles, which failed horribly) most specs have since had their target cap restrictions lifted for the most part. The main outliers that havent are, Outlaw and Fury, with outlaw being the only purely hardcapped spec in the game and Fury having a good amount of its aoe capped at 5, with some soft caps/uncapped abilities so they arent completely doomed to only doing damage to 5 targets(like outlaw is by default, and only gains 8t cap with a few AoE talents). The problem is that despite lifting most of those restrictions, it seems they completely arbitrarily pick and choose which abilities and which specs can have access to uncapped(or soft capped at 20) abilities, which have square root scaling, which are soft capped at 5t vs 8t etc. This also just kind of creates a tuning nightmare in AoE for them to deal with. I dont think every single spec should have similar AoE damage profiles, and some should excel are higher target counts vs others @ 5-8t, but when high keys have largely been centered around which specs do the most uncapped/softcapped AoE (while still having good ST/5t+ aoe) for the past few xpacs, any spec that has 0 access to, or very limited access to ANY/little AoE damage past 5-8t is automatically at a disadvantage. And in that case, your spec's viability is essentially completely tied to if Blizzard tunes your spec to be very powerful since you have to do A LOT of 5-8t damage to compete with specs who do strong uncapped damage...and even then, those uncapped specs still often end up more meta.

[@Ltnuggetv3]

@@Handcannon77 shitty design imo. all classes should be viable @ all levels. it’s not my fault they can’t balance the shit right. it’s not fair that when my tank pulls 15 mobs & there’s a rogue & demon hunter while i’m playing shadow there isn’t a way for me to compete. a lot of these higher keys we’re lusting first pull & my damage is scuffed all raid. it’s so stupid & it makes me not even want to play the game.

[@nathanbell6962]

I can fix shadow crash in 1 easy way....the closer to the player it lands the faster it lands.

[@Mitchievous13]

Leave mind sear in the past - fix shadow crash and fine tune psychic link.

[@user-hy9hu2yx8y]

Personally, I miss the Legion/BFA gameplay, yes, now it’s much easier to play packs in keys, but the current gameplay is too bland, especially with dark ascension, probably the most boring button, I just pressed it and forgot, the voidform at least changed your playstyle, gave you a voidbolt , which you wedged into the rotation. Shadowcrash is actually a failure button, missed - the DPS is lower than the tank, the tank stole the pack during the throw - the DPS is lower than the tank, it is in CD and the new pack is coming - the DPS is lower than the tank, I’m not talking about packs of 20+ spiders and other things, where is the sp at all can't do anything. In the legion/bfa there was the same problem, but there we had our own role, we were multi-dot spread damage dealers, and our dots dealt damage and not as now they served as a plug for our mastery. In its current form, Shadowpriest is too boring, we need either another rework again, which is unlikely, or finishing off what we already have. Make the shadowcrash fly to the target, and not to the area, give 2 stacks, give at least something, because in AoE scenarios it can be very difficult now, and no matter how people once spat on ms and for god sake sn, we at least can do something in aoe with tham. Also biggest DA builds problem in keys its that besides shadowcrash you cant extend your dots at all, in legion/bfa we have voidbold practicaly on cd for that, and its a big issue, they should make mindblast prolong our dots throught link or something like that, bamn we even have talent for this but its only for 1 target, like why? Our dots still pretty weak in comparison to legion/bfa, so why not. I personally would prefer to have 2 types of gameplay in talents, legion/bfa and sl/dragonflight but we all know blizzard cant do both equally good in our talent tree, or rather dont want to do. in new expansion we even have so called hero talants, like make something in there, some talents to switch gameplay for sp. Oh and one more, just get rid of mandgames and halo/star, its another 2 buttons, that nobody wants