Shadow Priests in World of Warcraft are getting a overhaul with 7.1.5 that drastically changes gameplay.
The 7.1.5 patch of World of Warcraft is currently on the testing server and has already undergone many different versions. One of the biggest changes will be the overhaul of the Shadow Priest. This has proven to be too powerful in many boss fights due to the talent “Surrender to Madness” (S2M). After Blizzard has tried multiple times to balance S2M and has failed miserably, they are now reworking the entire class around the spell:
- Shadowfiend no longer refreshes the DoTs on the target completely, but increases the existing duration of DoTs by 3 seconds on all nearby targets.
- Lingering Insanity (haste increase after going into Voidform) is also removed and will instead become a weakened talent.
The consequence of these changes will be that the Shadow Priest has to recast Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch even while in Voidform, which significantly reduces the duration of Voidform.
Apparently, this has already led to such a drastic drop in damage for Shadow Priests on the PTR that now adjustments are being made in other areas as well. In exchange for 10% less damage during Voidform, Shadow Priests will receive +25% damage to nearly all Shadow spells.
There are many more changes to “Shadow” that will all play into the new image of this specialization, such as the removal of Mind Blast or Lingering Insanity.
Whether this ultimately satisfies Blizzard and especially the Shadow Priests, who are currently going berserk in the forums, remains to be seen.
Cortyn says: These changes to the Shadow Priest are really rubbing me the wrong way. It’s not just about adjusting numbers anymore, but about changing an entire playstyle. Especially the changes to Shadowfiend, which now only extend DoTs by a few seconds instead of refreshing them, make the great Voidform a bad joke. Instead of having a nice “burst phase” with Voidform as intended, one now has to regularly completely renew the DoTs in this form. What is already annoying in PvE will surely become horror in PvP. But hey – the changes are not live yet.
Maybe Blizzard also decides to go with (in my opinion) the smartest idea: simply removing “Surrender to Madness” because it is impossible to balance and leaves Shadow otherwise as it is, rather than changing everything around it. But those are just my 5 copper.
You can find more about the changes in 7.1.5 and the recalculation of secondary stats in this post.
