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Shadow Priest Issues in Shadowlands Alpha - Rotation, Talents, Covenant Abilities
Shadowlands
Geposted
09.06.2020 um 03:02
von
Anshlun
Feedback and opinions on the current state of Shadow Priest and its issues on the Shadowlands Alpha, discussing the Shadow Priest rotation, talents, covenant abilities and more!
This article was written before the rework Shadow received on Shadowlands Beta, so it is outdated.
Introduction
One of the classes that changed the most in Legion was Shadow Priest, receiving basically a complete rework for the expansion launch. This rework, however, ended up relying heavily on the Artifact Weapon to work properly, as it became apparent during Battle for Azeroth's testing cycle, with the removal of the Artifacts.
After the rocky start in BFA, Shadow ended up in a good state thanks to a few strong Azerite Powers and later on Essences and Corruptions. All these fixes for Battle for Azeroth, however, happened thanks to "borrowed powers" from BFA, leaving the spec in the same precarious state it was before.
In this article, we will go over the small set of changes Shadow is currently receiving in Shadowlands and through all issues the spec currently faces when removing Azerite Powers, Azerite Essences, and Corruption from the equation. We will focus on a few key points that are hurting the Shadow Priest playstyle and overall fun of the spec.
About the Authors
This article has been written by the Shadow Team of
Warcraft Priests
, the Priest Class Discord. The team is formed by
Anshlun
,
Djriff
,
Ellipsis - Ice Bear
,
Elvenbane
,
Jaerv
,
Melgane
,
Publik
, and
Semicolondash
.
Disclaimer
At this moment, we currently have access to test the baseline Shadow Priest on Alpha, including Covenant Abilities. However, we have yet to see Legendaries, Soulbinds, or Conduits which might flesh out the spec a bit more. This post will go over certain issues deemed critical, regardless of how these systems are ultimately implemented. If the core of the spec doesn’t play correctly, these additional systems will be band-aids at best and become issues once more in patch 10.0. Similarly, many of these issues were present in BFA Alpha/Beta cycles and just band-aided with Azerite/Essences.
Priest Baseline Ability Changes for Shadowlands
NEW
Verzweifeltes Gebet
Increases maximum health by 25% for 10 sec, and instantly heals you for that amount.
NEW
Rank 2
Fade now reduces the range at which enemies will attack you when used while active.
Gedankenschlag
Blasts the target's mind for (120% of Spell power) Shadow damage
Generates 12 Insanity. 15-sec recharge
NEW
Soothes the target, reducing the range at which it will attack you by 10 yards. Only affects Humanoid and Dragonkin targets. Does not cause threat. Lasts 20 sec.
NEW
Seele der Macht
Infuses the target with power for 20 sec, increasing Haste by 25%.
Machtwort: Seelenstärke
Infuses the target with vitality, increasing their Stamina by 5% for 1 hour. If the target is in your party or raid, all party and raid members will be affected.
Machtwort: Schild
Shields an ally for 15 sec, absorbing 1.542 * (1 + Versatility) * 1 * 1] damage. You cannot shield the target again for 7.50 sec.
Wraps an ally in shadows which heal for (180%220% of Spell power), but at a price.
The ally will take 180%220% of Spell power) / 20] damage every 1 sec, until they have taken 180%220% of Spell power) / 2] total damage from all sources, or leave combat.
NEW
Schattenwort: Tod
A word of dark binding that inflicts (115% of Spell power) Shadow damage to the target. If the target is not killed by Shadow Word: Death, the caster takes damage equal to the damage inflicted upon the target.
15-sec cooldown
Shadow:
Generates 15 Insanity
Shadow Priest Ability Changes for Shadowlands
NEW
Rank 2
Mind Blast's cooldown reduced by 7 sec.
Reminder that Mind Blast now is 15s CD baseline, so this brings it to 8s CD, up 0.5s from current 7.5s CD.
NEW
Rank 2
Void Bolt can be cast while channelling Mind Flay.
Shadow Priest Talent Changes for Shadowlands
NEW
If a target dies within 6 sec after being struck by your Shadow Word: Death, you gain 40 insanity over 4 sec and the cooldown of your Shadow Word: Death is reset.
Tier 5 Talent, in place of
Schattenwort: Tod
NEW
You instantly gain 100 Insanity and cast Void Eruption on the target.
For the next 25 sec, your Insanity-generating abilities generate 100% more Insanity and you can cast while moving.
If the target does not die within 25 sec of using Surrender to Madness, you die.
Shadow Priest PvP Talent Changes for Shadowlands
REMOVED
While not in Voidform, reaching 90 Insanity reduces damage taken by 5%, and increases damage dealt by 10% for 15 sec.
NEW
When you cast Shadowmend twice within 1 sec on the same target, you automatically cast Prayer of Mending free of cost onto them.
Shadow Priest Kit Issues
Void Bolt Rank 2 Rotational Issues
NEW
Rank 2
Void Bolt can be cast while channelling Mind Flay.
The
Leerenblitz
Rank 2 Passive’s implementation causes three major issues.
Leerenblitz
in both Legion and BfA functioned as a global where Shadow is free to move without impacting its rotation. Without major movement abilities or an impactful cooldown window, Shadow needs this time to effectively handle mechanics or move in combat. With Void Bolt Rank 2, this is lost, as you will always want to be channeling
Gedankenschinden
when you cast it.
With this passive, we no longer need to cancel
Gedankenschinden
mid cast to cast
Leerenblitz
on cooldown. However, we now need to cancel
Gedankenschinden
by recasting it in order to pair it with
Leerenblitz
. This is less intuitive for newer players and still leads to
Gedankenschinden
often being clipped in the rotation.
Alongside
Schattenwort: Tod
, the passive highlights the lack of flexibility and almost claustrophobic nature of Shadow’s rotation. With the value of
Gedankenschinden
essentially doubling, Shadow loses any spell it can call a “filler”. This lack of filler makes any time you deviate from the core rotational feel costly and creates a rotation where there is zero space to use utility, cooldowns, or covenant abilities without some noticeable penalty.
While the second issue can be fixed by moving
Leerenblitz
off the GCD during
Gedankenschinden
, similar to Mage’s
Feuerschlag
, the first and third issues still remain. Shadow relies on the movement flexibility of
Leerenblitz
to maintain
Leerengestalt
in any situation that is not standing completely still, which this passive turns into something we wouldn’t want to do. Moreover, this change isn’t something Shadow Priests need to flesh out their toolkit, as it doesn’t solve any core problems with the spec. This change is doing a lot of harm for little, if any good, and needs to be re-thought or removed.
Voidform Extension and DoTs
In Alpha, there are only two benefits to entering and staying in
Leerengestalt
: access to
Leerenblitz
, and access to a small amount of additional haste. Neither of these benefits are particularly compelling at their current levels and, to make matters worse, with the Alpha playstyle your DoTs have a real chance of falling off during VF. In Legion, staying in
Leerengestalt
provided us significant amounts of haste, as each stack gave 1% instead of 0.5% and due to the levels of stacks we could achieve in addition to raw damage from
. In BfA we at least had the additional critical strike from having 3x
Refrain des Wahnsinns
. Shadowlands needs to provide a compelling incentive, more than it simply being that you’re not-not in
Leerengestalt
.
Mind Blast issues
NEW
Rank 2
Mind Blast's cooldown reduced by 7 sec.
Reminder that Mind Blast now is 15s CD baseline, so this brings it to 8s CD, up 0.5s from current 7.5s CD.
Shadow Priest’s rotation works very tightly with the GCD. The new Mind Blast Rank 2 for Shadow reduces its cooldown to a time not divisible by the GCD. It needs to be a 7.5s reduction rather than 7s or it will negatively impact Shadow’s rotation and create unnecessary downtime. On Alpha, this plays out to .5s (⅓ GCD) of downtime when you cast 5 GCDs worth of spells (each GCD is 1.5s).
Talent Problems
Nothing has changed with our talent choices in Shadowlands, leaving some core problems exposed that have been with us since Legion. The following section intends to highlight the lack of choice in certain rows and discuss why some of these talents are just core to the spec.
Surrender to Madness
NEW
You instantly gain 100 Insanity and cast Void Eruption on the target.
For the next 25 sec, your Insanity-generating abilities generate 100% more Insanity and you can cast while moving.
If the target does not die within 25 sec of using Surrender to Madness, you die.
First, and likely a bug, the Surrender to Madness buff on the player is removed when the debuffed target dies. This creates a lot of risk for little reward.
In general,
simply is not impactful enough, and is frankly just boring. This argument mostly circles back to the “
Voidform Extension and DoTs
” problems mentioned previously, that without a compelling reason to stay in
Leerengestalt
longer this talent provides little benefit.
, by contrast, provides very consistent damage, and not taking it will almost always be the wrong choice.
Shadow Word: Void
With the aforementioned
Gedankenschlag
cooldown issue, the idea has again resurfaced for the extra charge of
Gedankenschlag
given by
to become baseline in our kit. As it stands, the other talent options are never considered because, from a rotational standpoint,
is the less punishing and much more forgiving option. Having
Gedankenschlag
available in between our
Leerenblitz
s is crucial to maintaining a comfortable flow in the spec. Playing without the second charge forces you to delay
Gedankenschlag
because you’re in the middle of a Mind Flay channel or
Leerenblitz
cast.
Gedankenschlag
having 2 charges baseline would also give Blizzard room to experiment with new ideas, rather than Shadow losing yet another row of talent choices, and it would also make the rotation more beginner-friendly.
Lingering Insanity
On one hand, like
,
Bleibender Wahnsinn
is a necessity for Shadow from a gameplay perspective to smooth the jarring transition from the later stages of one
Leerengestalt
into the building the next, something the spec sorely needs. However, during Nighthold, and even more so in BFA,
Bleibender Wahnsinn
took on the added role of effectively carrying the haste and damage from one
Leerengestalt
into the next one. This adds to Shadow's backloading, whilst also taking away what little feeling of power progression
Leerengestalt
has left, as
Bleibender Wahnsinn
and
Leerengestalt
effectively cancel each other out.
Bleibender Wahnsinn
, like
are talents that are taken to ease the flow of the rotation and not have it be quite as jarring when leaving
Leerengestalt
. It is also one of the contributing factors of what makes Shadow feel punishing, as one bad
Leerengestalt
has a cascading effect on the next
Leerengestalt
. That being said,
Bleibender Wahnsinn
does help Shadow flow smoother and that aspect of it should be made baseline. This would free up the level 90 row and allow the row to be repurposed as a single target burst row, something Mindbender and Void Torrent attempt to do.
Shadow Word: Death + Death and Madness
Right now
Tod und Wahnsinn
feels very out of place. While
Schattenwort: Tod
doesn’t do much damage, the Insanity it generates will entice us to use it on cooldown, regardless of the talent. Furthermore, it can’t compete with the consistent damage scaling of
Verheißungsvolle Geister
or the Insanity generation of
Schattengeschoss
, meaning
Tod und Wahnsinn
will rarely be a good choice. This talent will continue to suffer until the
Leerengestalt
problem is fixed, or
Schattenwort: Tod
receives changes that helps it fit in our already cluttered rotation.
Covenant Abilities
After testing each of the Covenant abilities for Priest, it is clear that some of these abilities were not designed with Shadow Priest in mind. Many have no interaction with Shadow's core mechanics and some don't even fit the DPS role.
Venthyr Covenant
Gedankenspiele
- Assault an enemy's mind, dealing (200% of Spell power) Shadow damage and briefly reversing their perception of reality. For a 5 sec, the next damage they deal will heal their target, and the next healing they do will damage their target. Generates up to 40 Insanity. Reversed damage and healing generate up to 40 Insanity.
On the surface, this is one of our favorite Covenant abilities as a Shadow Priest. It fits the theme of Shadow and the fact that it gives Insanity is a nice touch. Our one concern with this is the Insanity generation itself. If the spell’s target suddenly stops casting or is in a vulnerable state where it doesn’t attack for some time, no Insanity is generated and we’ve potentially wasted a GCD that could have been spent generating Insanity. It would be nice if it gave some Insanity upfront and reduced the Insanity overtime to balance it out. That way, it would still be okay to cast, even if the reversal doesn’t happen, because at the least we would do some damage while still maintaining
Leerengestalt
.
Kyrian Covenant
Segen der Aufgestiegenen
- Draw upon the power of the Ascended for 10 sec , granting access to
Nova des Aufstiegs
, replacing
Gedankenschinden
with
Woge des Aufstiegs
and increasing your movement speed by 50% . Upon expiration, releases an
Aufgestiegene Eruption
.
This ability has a lot going on but has absolutely no synergy with
Leerengestalt
or Shadow and is detrimental to the fundamentals of the spec. If the goal of Shadow is to maintain
Leerengestalt
and generate stacks for ramping damage, why do I have an ability that replaces my filler spell with an ability that has a cooldown? Recently,
Woge des Aufstiegs
has been changed to generate insanity, though this still does not address how jarring it is to replace a channeled filler spell with something that has a cooldown.
Nova des Aufstiegs
, the other spell granted by this ability, would be optimal to use in AoE despite its limiting and counterproductive melee range, however, it still does not generate insanity and instead causes you to drop out of Voidform which is the opposite of what Shadow aims to do.
This ability seems to be designed around Discipline and Holy Priest with Shadow being more of an afterthought, even going as far as to remove interaction from the new void bolt passive (which is not without its own problems). It also requires the priest to be in melee range to get any real value in AoE, something you cannot often do.
From a different perspective, if I was a healing main and chose to take this Covenant ability, I would have no idea how to use this as a Shadow Priest, it just makes no sense. With Covenants locked to characters and not specs, this ability feels like a trap for anyone that would want to use this for Discipline/Holy while offspeccing Shadow.
Necrolord Covenant
Unheilige Nova
- An explosion of dark energy heals allies within 15 yards for (150% of Spell power) and infects nearby enemies with
Unheilige Transfusion
.
Unheilige Transfusion
- Deals (200% of Spell power) Shadow damage over 15 sec. Allies who damage this target are healed for (12% of Spell power).
Similar to Venthyr's ability, this one is another contender for a strong option for Shadow, as it provides the spec with an AoE option. The small caveat for this ability is that it has no interaction with
Leerengestalt
and the rest of your rotation, but since it doesn't require any maintenance, just one GCD to have its damage out, it shouldn't negatively impact the rotation.
Like the Kyrian Covenant ability’s AoE component, the Necrolord ability is once again limited to a 15-yard range. While the simplicity and unobtrusive design work well with Shadow’s already overloaded rotation, it feels like another spell designed for Discipline, who gains immense benefit from both the AoE damage and pseudo leech effect compared to Shadow really just wanting a strong damage spell. It’s the AoE side of the coin for Shadow, while Venthyr currently feels much more single target.
Night Fae Covenant
Faewächter
- Surround yourself with helpful sprites, causing your next 10 spell casts to aid your target depending on your chosen spell.
Saving the
best
worst for last, in its current state, the
Faewächter
ability is terrible for Shadow Priests since it essentially benefits everyone except for the Priest themselves. This ability attempts to put Priests into a support role, while at the same time providing little-to-no benefit to the Priest themselves. Adding this type of mechanic is interesting but should not be done at the cost of losing the active rotational abilities you get by choosing any other covenant.
As a Shadow Priest, if you use this ability and proceed with your normal rotation you will produce one of three different effects:
Gedankenschlag
will reduce an ally’s damage taken by 10%; not the worst but doesn’t provide any benefit to the Priest.
Machtwort: Schild
now gives 20 Insanity, a boost from the 6 it gives baseline with
Halluzinationen
but still not enough to warrant using this on purpose from a damaging standpoint (see
Voidform Extension
problems above).
Leerenblitz
reduces the cooldown on up to 5 allies’ major abilities by 3 seconds, affecting
Schattengeist
as Shadow. This cooldown reduction is hardly noticeable as Shadow, and is inherently shrugged off since
Schattengeist
offers so little to Shadow Priests that no one even pays attention to it these days.
None of these abilities make a conscious effort to benefit the Shadow Priest, while creating an environment in your raid where you could feel pressured to take this due to the inherent strength of the cooldown reduction for other classes. Taking a Covenant ability in order to benefit everyone but the player just doesn’t feel fun.
Closing Thoughts
Overall the future looks grim for Shadow in Shadowlands at this stage. With many of the issues the spec has had for four years still unaddressed, Shadowlands is shaping up to be another expansion where the borrowed power has to fill the gaps in the base spec, instead of building upon it, only this time the base spec is in worse shape than it was 2 years ago.
The directive decision to have a class-focused design instead of a spec-focused design also seems to be hurting Shadow a lot, as many of the changes and additions in Shadowlands are mostly geared towards the healing aspect of the class, and those which do affect Shadow priest directly appear to be detrimental.
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