Cortyn is unhappy with the “new” Shadow Priest in WoW. But other classes are also hardly fun anymore.
Good Wednesday afternoon, everyone. To counter the usual “You are such a Blizzard fanboy!” comments – which apparently forget that half of my “Whine Wednesday” columns are directed at Blizzard games – I’m turning my attention back to World of Warcraft.
Since Patch 7.1.5, the Shadow Priest in World of Warcraft has been the best damage dealer by far, at least until today’s hotfix. I could complain that the nerf really gets on my nerves – but that’s not my issue. The nerf is justified. However, even though my class is absolutely top-notch in damage numbers, I have another complaint: It’s not fun for me anymore.
Anyone who has followed my posts a bit knows that I have been playing WoW since Classic with some breaks. Since The Burning Crusade, my main character has always been a Shadow Priest. Throughout all that time, even when WoW as a whole became boring, the Shadow Priest has always been fun. That has simply vanished now.
Actually, I have always been relatively open to changes in World of Warcraft. I liked the redesign of the Priest – the Shadow Priest had less to do with the “Cult of the Forgotten Shadows”, instead, it now drew upon the madness of the Old Gods. What basically just sounded like a new story explanation has completely transformed the game. As a Shadow Priest, I now have not only a Shadow form but also a Void form.
That sounded cool on paper and was also fun at first.
The balance between accumulating insanity and staying as long as possible in the Void form was exciting but unfortunately became trivialized more and more. First, they removed Dispersion, a spell that not only reduces damage taken but also stops the loss of insanity while you generate new stacks of Void form – the last effect is gone.
The Void Bolt – an exclusive ability during Void form – has also been changed more and more. “In the past”, it reset all the Shadow Priest’s DOTs to their maximum duration upon impact. Now it increases the existing duration of DOTs by 3 seconds – but has a cooldown of 4 seconds (which decreases over the course of the Void form – explaining that would exceed the scope).
The result is that you now frantically hammer on the Void Bolt and prematurely interrupt other spells like Mind Flay, hoping every time, “Will the Bolt arrive on time? Will my DOTs be refreshed appropriately?” This places me under constant stress and leads to often frustrating gameplay – regardless of the damage dealt.
Lastly (and I hate to say this), the “skill cap” of the Shadow Priest has been significantly lowered. Instead of making it worthwhile to stay as long as possible in Void form, you now just whip from one Void form to the next without caring about the duration – insanity is gained so quickly that you are in Void form 70% of the time anyway.
The Shadow Priest doesn’t seem to be the only one who is driving players away. At least in my guild, the number of players turning away from their long-time main character is increasing because the gameplay experience has been lost somewhere between balancing and the new class fantasy.
What do you think? How do you like your class in Legion, especially after the last patch?
Related to this topic: Do Paladins without auras still correspond to their class fantasy?
