A Look Back at Shadow Priest in Dragonflight & War Within Wishlist - Editorial

No ar Criado 30/1/2024 em 11:30 por EllipsisPriest

Our Guide Writers have reviewed their specs throughout Dragonflight and share wishlists of what they'd like to see in the War Within. Check out all of our released editorials below.

Dragonflight Retrospectives & War Within Wishlists

Blood DKFrost DKUnholy DK

Havoc DHVengeance DH

Balance DruidFeral DruidGuardian Druid
Restoration Druid

Augmentation EvokerDevastation EvokerPreservation Evoker

BM HunterMM HunterSurvival Hunter

Arcane MageFire MageFrost Mage
Brewmaster Monk
Mistweaver MonkWindwalker Monk

Holy PaladinProtection PaladinRetribution Paladin

Discipline Priest
Holy PriestShadow Priest

Assassination RogueOutlaw RogueSubtlety Rogue

Elemental ShamanEnhancement Shaman
Restoration Shaman

Affliction WarlockDemonology WarlockDestruction Warlock

Shadow Priest's Journey Through Dragonflight

During the PTR, Shadow Priest, alongside the Priest class as a whole, was one of the first Talent Trees revealed during the early stages of Dragonflight Development. The initial talent tree was widely disliked and criticisms ranged from a lack of cohesion for what the spec was trying to do or be, to difficulty finding use cases for many of the talents. It felt more like a proof of concept for talent trees themselves, and less like a thought out spec. Thankfully both the class and spec trees saw a lot of iteration throughout Beta and came to the live game in a much healthier state than when they were initially revealed.

In Season 1, Shadow had a rocky start. Due to poor Single Target tuning, incredibly weak DoTs and spread cleave, and a lack of movement tools, Shadow saw very little high end play in both raids and Mythic+ for the first few months. Another major factor that impacted Shadow's viability in Vault of the Incarnates, was the extremely heavy movement requirement for many of the bosses, particularly Raszageth who, in her initial Mythic Incarnation, was lethal for Shadow without the use of an Evoker's Resgate spell at multiple points throughout the fight.

Shadow received multiple rounds of buffs throughout Season 1, most notably buffs to Psychic Link's spread damage to include damage dealt by both Seta Caótica and Torrente do Caos. After these buffs, as well as changes to some of the more demanding Mythic raid encounters, Shadow's popularity and strength in PvE content began to rise, and by the end of the tier Shadow was one of the strongest DPS choices for Mythic+.

While Shadow did end the first tier in a strong spot, it took a while to get there. Despite feeling smooth enough in skilled hands, the spec was very busy, with a lot of procs to manage and a large number of active abilities. For this reason, a rework was announced to Shadow's kit. Removing Mind Sear and mind spike procs, in favor of a single filler choice and AoE gameplay centered around Psychic Link.

In Season 2, the initial tuning of the rework meant Shadow Priest was once again lacking in Single Target, though what it lacked on fights like Rashok it made up for on Sarkareth, earning it a consistent spot throughout World First progression. Shadow's unique damage pattern of high priority target with low opportunity cost AoE was perfect for the Aberrus raid, as well as Mythic+, and Shadow was firmly the strongest and most popular DPS spec for high keys in the first months of 10.1.

In patch 10.1.5 Shadow received some buffs aimed at improving its poor Single Target damage performance in raids. These buffs had a knock on effect on AoE through Elo Psíquico, and pushed Shadow even higher in Mythic+, becoming 1/3 of the DPS God Comp comprised of Shadow Priest, Fire Mage, and Augmentation Evoker. Shadow received multiple damage nerfs throughout this period which heavily impacted its AoE damage.

Shadow ended the season still a part of God Comp, though now it was more often brought for its incredibly valuable utility, including Mass Dispel, Mind Soothe, and Power Infusion, and less for the raw damage the spec brought. Before Season 3 launched, Blizzard announced they would be nerfing Dissipação em Massa to a 2 minute cooldown, as well as reducing both the effectiveness of Infusão de Poder and reworking some its largest beneficiaries to reduce its value. These changes also came with more nerfs to both Shadow's resource generation and its damage.

Season 3 started badly for Shadow. The nerfs that had come throughout Season 2 were compounded by the removal of the season's set bonus, and a shift towards a Single Target talent kit with less incidental AoE damage. Shadow's poor tuning and weakened utility meant that it saw no play in the Amirdrassil World First race, and fell out of the Mythic+ meta.

The spec has been receiving intermittent buffs and tuning to both its AoE and Single Target damage, and as the season has progressed has found its feet to be a strong Mythic+ option. However it still suffers in raid due to mediocre Single Target and a complete lack of reliable high target burst DPS. Tindral Sapiopresto, particularly for example, is a fight where high burst AoE and movement requirements do not play to its strengths.

After many ups and downs, Shadow sits in an awkward spot. Its sustained AoE in high end keys is strong but it can be cumbersome to play and lacks the burst needed to feel good at lower levels. Its Single Target is relatively weak but tuning is tied directly to its AoE through Elo Psíquico. Its utility consists of a few unique niche spells on long cooldowns, meaning their relevance is heavily tied to encounter design. Shadow has followed a trend every patch of starting off weak, receiving buffs for raid performance that push it over the top in Mythic+, then receiving nerfs to rein it back in until the next patch, when the cycle starts anew. This cycle of buffs and nerfs means the spec has received a disproportionate amount of developer attention throughout the expansion and, despite being a poor choice for those raiding in top end guilds, has rarely stayed bad for all that long.

Power Infusion and the impact of externalsGêmeos da Sacerdotisa do SolInfusão de PoderSopro EônicoInfusão de PoderInfusão de PoderThe Reworks

Rework 1: Moving into Dragonflight, Shadow saw substantial changes as part of the talent revamp. Searing Nightmare, the spec's AoE spender during Shadowlands, was removed in favor of changing Mind Sear into a resource spending, channeled ability. Dragonflight also brought back Mind Spike as a separate single target filler spell that was made instant cast with ticks of Toque Vampírico. The fan favorite, Mind Flay: Insanity, also returned, buffing Açoite Mental after every cast of Peste Devoradora. Ascensão Sombria also came back to offer an alternative damage cooldown to Forma do Caos, and Colisão de Sombras was reworked into a reliable way to mass apply both maintenance damage over time spells. This rework came with the tagline "Build your own Shadow Priest," and tried to marry together the more recent design of Shadowlands with a lot of features Shadow hadn't had access to since Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria.

Despite being functional, it created a very busy rotation. Instead of picking and choosing what aspects of Shadow's previous designs you wanted to use, you instead were incentivized to use all of them. For experienced players this was no problem, however it did give rise to discussion surrounding button bloat within the wider community. On top of that, for as much as players supported Colisão de Sombras being reworked into a way to apply their DoTs, the initial cooldown was long and didn't line up very effectively for Mythic+ keys where packs were dying too quickly. The experience playing Shadow as a new player, especially in lower content, was arguably not a pleasant one, so Shadow received details of a rework going into patch 10.1 that aimed to streamline the AoE and Single Target gameplay.

Rework 2: The results of the streamlining were the removal of Mind Sear as a spender, the addition of Peste Devoradora to Elo Psíquico in order for Peste Devoradora to function as a spender on both Single Target and AoE, the reduction of Colisão de Sombras's cooldown to 20 seconds to allow players to consistently reapply DoTs in AoE without having to resort to manually casting Toque Vampírico, the consolidation of Açoite Mental and Aguilhão Mental into a single spell choice, and the addition of Aguilhão Mental to the effects of Irrupção da Insanidade. Altogether these changes resulted in the gameplay experience between Single Target and AoE being nearly identical, as well as a cleaner and more streamlined rotational feel, which opened up more space for Forma do Caos to see play as it was now a lot easier to consistently cast Seta Caótica on cooldown. In losing separate Aguilhão Mental, Shadow lost a large amount of its instant cast Burst damage and some of its mobility. For the most part this only affected PvP, though it did affect the spec's viability in PvP heavily especially outside of top end competitive play.

Player response to these changes has been mixed. The reduction in complexity has been seen as both a significant improvement and a huge step backwards depending on your perspective on class design. Despite the goal being to reduce complexity and reduce bloat, spells like Jogos Mentais which, for Shadow, serve only to be pressed on cooldown and provide little interaction survived, while things that offered skill expression to use correctly did not. Forma do Caos also has its fair share of detractors, and with it becoming the de facto way to play Shadow for the Majority of Season 2, people had begun to question how effective the idea of "Build your own Shadow Priest" could be. Ultimately how anyone felt about the second rework was overshadowed by the performance of the spec in Mythic+ as a member of God Comp. The mix of highly valued utility for the Season 2 dungeon pool, strong priority target damage with incidental cleave, and Infusão de Poder to pair with both Augmentation Evoker and Fire Mage meant, regardless of people's thoughts about gameplay, the damage was there and the spec saw unanimous representation in the season's Mythic+ dungeon competitions and events.

Rework 3: In a further effort to reduce the busyness of Shadow's rotation, the talent Irrupção da Insanidade was altered to provide an empowered cast after every other Peste Devoradora cast, instead of after every one. This change also came with a series of other nerfs to both utility and damaging spells. While this is a significantly smaller mechanical change than anything we saw in either of other two reworks, I've chosen to include it because it has had an impact on gameplay beyond just numbers. The consensus among players was that this mechanical change was unnecessary as Shadow had either been trimmed down enough or too much already. The lack of world beating performance to showcase the spec's strength in higher keys has also meant that a lot more of the gameplay focus for Shadow this season has been focused on lower level keys where the Colisão de Sombras focused design has problems. The Mythic+ experience for Shadow Priests is currently incredibly polarizing as, while damage is there the higher you go, burstier specs beat you to the punch a lot, and pull cadences don't always line up cleanly with the cooldown of Colisão de Sombras.

The current design of Shadow hasn't had an opportunity to shine in a Raid environment this tier either, with very little spread cleave to leverage Elo Psíquico and a strong focus on burst AoE which Shadow does not provide. The recent buffs in 10.2.5 seek to alleviate this, but it will take time to see how much of an impact they will have. For now it's clear that, while mechanically very little changed between Seasons 2 and 3, performance plays a large role in player perceptions and it's clear there are pain points to be addressed in the future.

Talent TreeInspiraçãoPrece da RecomposiçãoRecomposição Concentrada

Gêmeos da Sacerdotisa do Sol is a talent that has already been discussed briefly. It is a mandatory, powerful talent that has shaped the class in all aspects of the game.

Jogos Mentais from a Shadow perspective feels like a bit of a loose end. An ability that exists to be pressed on cooldown and provide a small damage increase, it's one of the largest examples of bloat left in the spec, in my opinion, and while it has value for PvP, there are likely better ways to provide this effect without gumming up the Single Target rotation.

Peste Devoradora is the spec's starting node and resource spender in both Single Target and AoE.

Dispersão is a core defensive and mandatory talent choice.

Aparições Sombrias is a mandatory damage talent.

Silêncio is a talent that feels awkward to take in many circumstances, due to its relatively niche use when valued solely as an interrupt. In PvE, a silence is rarely any better than a kick, so Shadow is often sidelined as much as possible from interrupt mechanics due to its long cooldown. In raids it's typically avoided but sees play in keys as a stop. There's been constant desire from Priests as a whole to see something change with the location and nature of Silence as a spell, perhaps moving it to the Class Tree and downgrading to an interrupt on a shorter cooldown, with the Silence specific option made something optional for Shadow.

Fortitude Mental is the talent taken instead of Silence in most circumstances.

Padecimento is a mandatory talent for damage gain and navigating the tree.

Terror Psíquico / Última Palavra is a talent in a sad position in Shadow's talent tree. This talent cannot be taken without costing some amount of damage or Dispersão, the spec's major defensive cooldown. It's a shame that the talent which offers the spec much needed control options, as well as that previously mentioned shorter cooldown interrupt, sees almost zero play in PvE and is only really used in PvP.

Ceifador de Pensamentos is a mandatory damage talent.

Elo Psíquico is a mandatory talent as Shadow's only real source of AoE.

Irrupção da Insanidade is a mandatory damage talent.

Escuridão Desatante

Toque Enlouquecedor does provide insanity but it provides so little as to be almost meaningless.

Maculado pelo Caos could be interesting, but as Peste Devoradora is not really a burst tool. It never really has a use case beyond the extra bonus damage.

Erupção do Caos / Ascensão Sombria is a polarizing node, with a large number of fans and haters on both sides. The decision to have this cooldown have a cast time, especially in the case of Ascensão Sombria, has been perplexing and annoying throughout the entire expansion, especially when the spell doesn't even do anything all that special. One feels like it should be for AoE and the other for Single Target, but which one you end up using everywhere often just comes down to tuning. Given the divide amongst the players on which they prefer, I'm also not really sure you can resolve this and keep everyone happy.

Realidade Distorcida / Olho da Mente have both been used in both Single Target and AoE throughout Dragonflight, which feels odd as the one that increases the duration of DOTs should logically lend itself to a Multi Dotting style of gameplay that hasn't really materialized at any point in the expansion, and instead is just used for raw damage output on a Single Target. Doubling the duration of Peste Devoradora also increases its uptime on Single Target, removing a lot of the skill testing elements of managing the spec's mastery.

Aparições SombriasDobramentesTorrente do Caos

Ídolo de Y'Shaarj is played in single target builds focusing on Dobramentes. Despite an interesting premise, it is simply trying to do too much and is too difficult to reliably control.

Ídolo de N'Zoth is an AoE choice modeled off the Echoing Void Corruption ability from Battle for Azeroth. It's passive AoE damage that works well enough in dungeons but doesn't really live up to that N'zoth name.

Ídolo de Yogg-Saron serves as Shadow's main payoff in the apparition-centric build. It's seen consistent play in both raids and dungeons, but due to the uncontrollable nature of apparitions, it can often be difficult to craft the big payoff moment a capstone like this deserves.

Ídolo de C'Thun, while passive, is generally well liked, and a mainstay of every build throughout the expansion. The tentacles have a great visual, the resource generation they provide is visceral, and getting lucky and spawning a large number of them from Torrente do Caos is something you really feel. Good Job.

Tier Bonuses

Set 1: Draconic Hierophant's Finery

2-Set - Sacerdote, Sombra, Conjunto de Classe, 2 pç - Impacto Mental increases the damage of your next Peste Devoradora by 12%, stacking up to 3 times.
4-Set - Sacerdote, Sombra, Conjunto de Classe, 4 pç - Peste Devoradora increases your haste by 4% for 8 sec.

Peste Devoradora

Set 2: The Furnace Seraph's Verdict

2-Set - Priest Shadow 10.1 Class Set 2pc - Increases the chance for Intuição Sombria to trigger by 25%. When consuming Intuição Sombria, Impacto Mental deals 30% increased damage and generates 4 additional Insanidade.
4-Set - Priest Shadow 10.1 Class Set 4pc - Peste Devoradora damage increased by 15%. Every 4 casts of Peste Devoradora increases the damage of Aparições Sombrias conjured within the next 10 sec by 80%.

Aparições Sombrias

Set 3: Blessings of Lunar Communion

2-Set - Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 2pc - Palavra Sombria: Morte triggers 2 additional times at 15% effectiveness. Palavra Sombria: Mortes cast using Morta-voz or on targets below 20% health only trigger one additional time.
4-Set - Priest Shadow 10.2 Class Set 4pc - Receiving backlash damage from Palavra Sombria: Morte empowers your next Colisão de Sombras or Palavra Sombria: Dor to deal more damage, stacking up to 12 times.

DobramentesUtility, Dungeons, and God Comp

Guardian Druids, Fire Mages, Shadow Priests, and Augmentation Evokers were all built around dealing large amounts of damage with potent two minute cooldowns. The Bear was also at its most defensive during this time, which incentivized the group to pull as large as humanly (or ursinely) possible. The Augmentation Evoker's Sopro Eônico provided both a huge damage amplification and cushion of safety against incoming damage that made these pulls safer and more successful. With everything running on 2 minute timers, Infusão de Poder fit into the comp perfectly, and Fire Mages at the time were consistently able to make the most use possible out of one of our most potent pieces of utility.

Defensively, between the un-nerfed versions of Areias Cambiantes, Fulgor de Luz, and the passive buffs from the Evoker, Priest, Paladin, and Druid, a lot of natural bulk and durability was provided to the whole team. While Shadow was not a weak spec defensively, its lack of desire for versatility or passive mitigation has meant that in the past it has struggled in Mythic+ when avoidable damage scales into one shot territory.

Much like with Protection Paladin in Season 1, Shadow welcomed the addition of Augmentation Evoker to Mythic+; their extensive disruption toolkit made up for Shadow's own lack of AoE stops and control. One of Shadow's historic weaknesses in Mythic+ has always been lack of AoE mob control, and while Grito Psíquico has had its target cap of 5 removed in Dragonflight, it's still pretty low on the totem pole.

Dissipação em Massa was either exceptionally powerful or near mandatory in 4 of the 8 Mythic+ dungeons in Season 2, as well as able to near enough negate the Estilhaçante affix.

Reconforto Mental was able to be used in most dungeons, since they contained large numbers of dragonkin and humanoids with very few other mob types in between. This allowed priests to skip many dangerous trash packs for their groups, as well as complete the cage event in Clareira de Courambaia alone while the group cleared trash for percent.

Dissipação em MassaThe War Within Speculation and Hero TalentsAparições SombriasShadow Word: Pain Points

AoE gameplay: As well as Colisão de Sombras might work in optimised high end environments, putting so much of a spec's total AoE value into a single spell with a medium length cooldown that can often whiff through no fault of the player, likely isn't the best way forward long term. Elo Psíquico's value as a way to provide spread cleave despite weaker overall DoT damage is excellent, but the spec needs ways to deal indiscriminate AoE damage more reliably. Shadow's AoE also currently feels exactly the same to play as it does Single Target, with the only change to rotational priorities being the inclusion of Colisão de Sombras. While I didn't personally enjoy Mind Sear attempting to fill that role, it's clear something has to when spread cleave isn't cutting it.

Rethink Utility: After the enormous nerfs all three priest specs received to Dissipação em Massa, something feels like it needs to fill that void to make sure the class as a whole remains desirable or relevant beyond just tuning and Infusão de Poder. The fact that Shadow's interrupt and CC are awkwardly positioned in the spec tree also makes for some unfortunate choices that no other specs really have to make. I'd love to see some cool Shadow themed utility spells as well.

A Call for Cohesion: The tagline for the spec going into Dragonflight was "Build your own Shadow Priest" aiming to appease two very different thematic identities within the same talent tree. I feel that, while this ended up taking a backseat to mechanical and tuning issues throughout the expansion, trying to balance two themes in the same tree proved very difficult to get right. It's my hope that with the introduction of Hero Talents, those themes can be properly housed and expanded upon leaving a base Shadow tree with a lot more thematic consistency.

Hello! I am Ellipsis, moderator for WarCraftPriests, the Priest Discord. I work on Shadow Priest theorycraft alongside the Shadow Team, you can check out our work here! I am often active on the WarCraftPriests discord server and free to answer any questions or queries related to Shadow Priest or any content in any of my guides. I raid in The Misty Moon on EU Tarren-Mill (Formerly The Misty Moon Massive) and have raided between top 50 and 300 since Legion but I've been playing Shadow Priest in some capacity for going on 14 years. Outside of WoW, I spend most of my time listening to music, especially seeking out interesting new things I haven't heard before!

Ice Bear.

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