That sinking feeling

It probably is safe to say that the success of an expansion hinges not on how much content is released, but how much is perceived to still be “up Blizzard’s sleeve”. By that token, Cataclysm was a short and ironically uneventful expansion. It shouldn’t be that you hit the final raid of the expansion to find the bosses quite easy on Normal mode and then proceed to beat around the bush with hard modes because that’s all you have left. Hard modes are awesome, but once we clear them, the expansion’s just about over.

Over – with no sign in sight for Mists of Pandaria.

Yes, there will be a beta where 90% of the WoW population will join (mind you, when you signed for that annual pass they didn’t promise you what stage beta you’d be joining) and daily snippets of Blizzcon footage are wound off their reels again to keep people interested. Logical, in the light of quite a few contenders in the MMO territory for the more casual player – which is exactly what MoP seems to be targetting.

Taking it easy for a change

After a plethora of world-shattering bosses (Illidan, Kil’jaeden, the Lich King, Deathwing) it will be a breath of fresh air to enter an expansion where we aren’t immediately rushed into doom and gloom. After all, that’s what it felt like and it echoed through every sliver of Cataclysm. Deathwing’s coming, hit 85 quickly, assist the Molten Front with post-haste, quickly defeat Ragnaros and then face Deathwing. Time for a change of pace.

Exploration, discovery and lore matter quite a bit in any story. Finding Pandaria and its mysterious inhabitants, magic and monsters will give us a new insight into Azeroth and its secrets. This way, Blizzard can slowly up the tension to the level of mid-TBC and prepare for another expansion or two before another world-shattering incident.

The joy is in the eating

One of the greatest changes in WoW currently is a shift in focus from the hardcore players from Classic to the people in Cataclysm who are, effectively, playing a lifestyle. It’s a lot less about the cutting edge gear, split-second tactics and perseverance. World-first raiders and upper-echelon PvP masters are now part of the e-sports celebrity community and thereby elevated far above even the UNcommon player.

This means that aside of raiding, PvP and collection games (Archeology, achievements, reputations, mounts, pets, Transmog gear) more needs to be done to capture and entertain the audience. A few of these things are announced for MoP and while derided as childish by some, I am quite looking forward to it.

• Pandaren represent a first option for a race in both factions, and I am interested how they build on the sparse lore from before (which states nothing more than them being fun-loving ale-guzzling martial artists).
• The Monk class will, if it resembles the form it was announced in at Blizzcon, a new avenue in class design. More active abilities, requiring a different set of skills and with no one who has mastered it opening it up as a new choice for many. Like DKs, many will fail before it will be embraced by the community.
• Pandaren and its evil spirits are dear to me because of the imagery, use of color and having an area that deviates from the more traditional heavy-handed High Fantasy. While you could taste this in an Asian MMO, it’s nice to have a change-over on the scenery.
• Pet Battles may resemble a certain collection game a lot, but in the end it’s just a fun little diversion while you wait for your other raid members to arrive (or your LFR/LFG queue to pop). With Blizzard’s intent to lessen our desire to all cramp together in one city and lazily wait for our next adventure-on-demand window to pop up, this can only improve.
• A new expansion means a new chance to give our opinions and influence the way the game will be. A game can only be a success if everyone’s desires are met in one way or the other. And as much as people have been moping about it (hah!) fact remains that this is still a wildly popular game – and probably will remain (one of) the largest until the release of Titan.

Right now it feels like we, as players, carefully ration ourselves with the current content. Likely we will have to wai thalf a year at least before the new expansion hits our welcome mat, and we will have to make do with the content we have. Currently the lore has “run dry”. There might be a few more big bads to run on (At least two old gods, C’thun is still not dead again I believe, and at the end of the road is Sargeras) but as sad a state as Deathwing has been reduced to in terms of a fight, having him be topped in his own expansion a la Kil’jaeden topping Illidan would be even more of a slap in the face.

What I hope to see

There’s a few more checks-in-the-box for things I’d love to see in Mists of Pandaria. Things that would make me happy and (among them) continue blogging about. It’s no secret that one of the reasons I am writing less is because there simply is less to write about – and I’d like to see that changed.

• An epic opening cinematic for MoP, and preferably a half-time moment of jaw-dropping awesomeness (a la Wrath Gate)
• The Monk class being exciting, dynamic and difficult – but with corresponding rewards in visual displays and feel-good moves
• Pet battles becoming secretly embraced by people who detract it currently, leading to a new brand of e-sports
• A storyline that slowly ramps up in scope, not breaking out of its box in the first 30 minutes of play
• Monk/Martial Art training tools that actually work and allow you to show off your WoW-Fu – danger room, please
• Emphasis on quality raids with doable LFR, challenging normal modes and fiendish hard modes
• Loot that does not look like it was taken out of a Slaine comic book
• Lore revealed which meshes with existing lore, yet gives us inrigueing insight into an isolated culture
• Classes which have a stronger theme as foundation, meaning less stepping on other’s toes in terms of lore, looks and feel
• Content being paced properly, allowing us to not have “expansion left at the end of the content”

All in all I have a good feeling about MoP – but the risk remains that watering down the game for the benefit of too large a group will cause it to go stale. I mean, look at a very successful family game like Wizard 101 which is very fun for kids - but not challenging at all for (most) adults.

Warhammer fell into the trap of catering to a single group (PvPers), Age of Conan offered too little content and meandered all over the place, RIFT simply was too complex and its shiny exterior hid a multiple-personality syndrome, D&D Online simply didn’t live up anywhere to its legendary tabletop origins and the various superhero MMOs (Champions Online, DC Universe, City of Heroes/Villains) coped with a serious image problem when it came to more mainstream gamers.

Currently the main contender for my personal attention is Star Wars: The Old Republic. It features strong lore, clever storytelling and class-personalized quest lines. Sure it will be old hat after the second time or so, but for now it feels very clever and well-made. Endgame is still a question, as a lot of bugs have been removed only recently. It does feature reasonably balanced classes with a strong theme – which is one of the things WoW is in danger of losing.

My hope is that in the run towards Mists of Pandaria classes will have a stronger theme, balanced visuals and a unique selling point. Without it, people may burn out on frustration.

Without epic class quests (Paladin and Warlock Mount, Anathema/Benediction, Warlock Doomguard and Infernal, the epic quest line for Hunters, and so on) and the continued attempts and balance through homogenization we currently have a situation where classes are in some cases cardboard cutouts for each other, where you can practically see the “cut along the lines” indications on abilities.

Conclusion

Even though WoW is a old workhorse of an MMO, it is by far the most popular and has shown much innovation in its time. Now it will have to make a great metamorphosis, evolving to endure the coming onslaught of next-gen MMOs. Mists of Pandaria might be the chance the game developers need to show that they can cater to the newer, more casual gamer while still honoring the time-old veteran’s tradition of elbow grease and theorycraft.

Look and feel

The theme of the Sith code is very strong, and is represented in everything a Sorceror does. Dark sided social options, quests that promise *unlimited powerrrr* and Lightning as primary source of damage. Every second of play, every encounter with NPCs, underlines that you are dangerous and unpredictable, demanding of respect. It’s really well done, and mirrors my earlier post about class design: a strong theme, a strong feel makes half a class.

Talents

I am currently playing a hybrid between the Lightning and Madness trees, but you could go for more Madness (more DoTs) or fully into Lightning (more Direct Damage). Strong points of the Sorceror are their mix of healing and damage (even the healers deal damage to keep their Force regeneration up), ability to shield allies and their good CC. Whirlwind allows you to keep an opponent out of the fight indefinitely, and you can talent it for a reduced cooldown or CC’ing more than one mob at a time.

Damage-wise, there’s a lot of synergy in talents. Lightning Strike (Say, Shadowbolt) ups your Force Regeneration. Affliction (SW:P) makes your Force Lightning tick faster. Thundering Blast crits automatically on targets with Affliction on it and feels a lot like Mind Blast currently is. Force Lightning is a dead ringer for Mind Flay – it even has the Slowing component. All in all, people who play Shadowpriests will find that the Sorceror is a wealth of rediscovery.

Playstyle

When playing solo, the Sorceror plays a bit like a Warlock, using your companion Khem Val as a tank and healing him while you blast opponents to pieces. This is quite challenging to do, because Khem Val is not so bright and has a lot of AoE, breaking your careful CC. You can turn off his AoE abilities (he has a full pet bar) but to be honest it seems to spring back one every time (most likely a bug).

You have a lot of short-term control (as do most classes). You can Interrupt, you have a Stun (Electrocute) but even your Shock will stun weaker targets. If you are swarmed, you can knock your foes back. All in all, an enormous toolbox of abilities. Like the classic Shadowpriest, you also have quite some healing power – and be expected to use it. A Flashpoint can be healed even without a healing spec, but it will be a challenge. More to the point, you will get a lot of healing practice keeping your companions up on some of the more challenging class quests.

The flipside of the Sorceror (the Assassin) is my girlfriend’s weapon of choice – a combination of Death Knight, Rogue and (TBC-style) Tankadin. All in all ironic since her main’s been a Paladin since TBC, and she instantly recognized the playstyle from way back when. In fact, a lot of the feel of the classes and abilities are reminiscent of TBC-era World of Warcraft. And here too, a tank/healer combo is the bomb. Between the two of us, 4-man quests are relatively easy because we carry healing power, enough CC to control 2-3 targets and 2 additional companions.

Mind you that you will need it – this game is definitely more challenging than WoW. Mobs will need CC, positioning is important and the game does not pull punches in your class quests. Adapt or die, seems to be the buzz word.

Conclusion

For players of a Shadowpriest, the Sorceror feels like the Shadowpriest should: dark, powerful, commanding respect. There’s a lot of support for your group, and a lot of ways to screw over your enemies. The only complaint would be that you have too much to do, and are fighting bar space to fit it all in.

For Blizzard, I’d recommend a similar treatment for the Shadowpriest – don’t be afraid of the CC (we lack it anyway), the stuns/control (smart players need a challenge, on either side of the fence) and damage potential. In the end, the feeling of the class determines its popularity.

Here’s an excerpt:

Madison Square Garden can seat 20,000 people for a concert. This blog was viewed about 65,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

You will find yourself at the Path of the Titans, staring down a pile of Elemental trash and a big stone giant trying to hammer down the path towards Wyrmrest temple. This is the first boss, Morchok.

Morchok

Morchok is an easy boss, a classic piece of basic design like Marrowgar. The raid needs to stack up behind him for AoE heals, and seven ranged DPS need to run around when he spawns cystals. The crystals will explode, and deal damage to the seven (7) nearest players. The further away they are, the more damage it deals, so be sure to stick on top of it. A line will be between you and the crystal, where red=dead, yellow=ouchies and blue=excellent.

Every now and then he will call down very large crystals and begin to do a corrupted earthquake. Run away from him and hide behind the pillars. Black goo will spread across the floor, avoid it and DPS the boss. Once the goo disappears, rush back in and stack up, repeat until loot pops up.

Once he dies, you will be able to enter the temple and access two new bosses – Zon’ozz and Yorsahj the Sleepless.

Zon’ ozz

Welcome to a good match of tennis. The boss has two phases, and the raid controls when this switches. First off he stacks a buff on himself, increasing the damage he deals and his attack speed. The raid needs to stack up behind him at the edge of the pool. Put melee behind him, and tank him facing the raid. He will create a ball of shadow energy and toss it at the raid, at which point the tank should turn him away from the raid.

The ranged will intercept the ball, which explodes, dealing damage spread among all ranged. It then goes back towards Zon’ ozz. The melee should then intercept it and send it back to the ranged. Again the ranged intercepts it, shares the (now quite big) damage, and it will move back towards Zon’ozz again. At this point, all melee moves away from the boss, so that the orb of shadows hits the boss. It will then explode, and the boss will lose his stacks of Rising Anger and will take increased damage from all sources.

This starts phase 2 – he will run to the middle and for 30 seconds all manner of tentacles will spawn around the pool and hurt everyone. A black sludge will be filling the area for even more damage. This needs to be healed through, and is a healing check. After thirty seconds, resume phase 1, turning the boss away from the raid once he spawns his ball of shadows. Repeat until he dies.

The only real complication in the fight is that a few people in the raid will get a debuff, which deals damage. This is better dispelled, but doing this knocks people back, so mark a spot a bit away from the raid for people with the debuff to run to. Assign one healer to dispelling this timely.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping

Yor’sahj himself is not much of a threat, mostly tossing a Shadowbolt at the Tank. The raid should be stacked close behind him. Every so often he will call in a random set of three slimes, which move towards the boss. The raid must choose 1 to DPS down, the other 2 will become immune to damage and give new abilities to Yor’ sahj. The available options for him to summon are:

• Purple (Shadowed) – Every 5th heal or absorption efffect a player receives will deal massive Shadow damage to all payers – Avoid at all costs
• Red (Fire) – AoE Fire damage – Stack up close and AoE Heal
• Green (Acid) – Nature damage on all players and splash damage – spread out
• Yellow (Glowing) – Yor’sahj will use all other abilities he gets more often, and Shadowbolt will now hit all raid members
• Blue (Cobalt) – Summons a blue add, which drains all mana from players. It needs to be killed and healers stay close so that when it dies, it gives them their mana back.
• Dark – Summons many small Forgotten One adds, which fixate on players and need to be killed with AoE.

Generally the priority for killing the slimes is Purple > Green > Glowing. Purple is bad because it makes the healers’  job much harder. Green forces the raid to spread out while all other abilities encourage stacking up. Glowing will make his other abilities hit harder and deals even more AoE damage.

If you get a combo of Purple – Red – Green it means you have a problem, since if you do not kill the purple one, healing through the red or green damage is a pain, while if you do, you have to choose between spreading out making healing harder or stacking up and getting more damage from the acid. This is not a pretty choice. Otherwise, this priority seems to work, and quick communication on which add to kill is very important.

Otherwise this boss should go down rather quickly.

Hagara the Stormbinder

A Forsaken Mag/Shaman thing, Hagara first has a few waves of summoned trash before jumping into the middle of the room. Of note to Rogues, she is the one to pickpocket tocomplete the first Legendary quest. She can be reset by attacking her and then using Vanish.

She has three main phases – a normal phase, and then either an Ice or Lightning phase. The order will be Normal – Ice – Normal – Lightning – Normal – Ice – Repeating.

Normal Phase

She has a Focused Assault, swinging wildly and there’s a tank swap involved. Around the room, crystals are spawned that put a beam on a random target, which then shoots ice lances. People can stand in the beam to soak the Ice Lance instead – Shadow Priests make good soakers for this. She also casts Ice Tomb, which will trap 2 (LFR/10man Normal), 5 (25man Normal) or 6 (25man Heroic) targets in ice. They need to be killed before she casts Shattered Ice and kills the player in the tomb. Easiest is to mark a spot for people with Ice Tombs on them (blue arrow above your head) to run to so that all tombs can be DPS’d down with AoE.

Ice Phase

The inner ring will become an orb of water – players in it will drown and die quickly. Hagara will be immune to all damage at this time. So move out and DPS the ice crystals that spawned at the edge. Rnadom spots will get a blue circle, where ice rocks will fall down and knock players away and deal quite some damage. After a few seconds, four ice waves shoot out from her and form walls of ice which run around the platform clockwise. Make sure to stay ahead of them, and try to stay as close to the water wall as you can.  Once all ice crystals are destroyed, she goes back into Normal phase.

Lightning Phase

She will become immune to damage and will cast massive Lightning AoE around the platform. A few conductors will spawn, as well as a Lightning Elemental. When you kill the elemental, people nearby become conductive, and you can form a line of people from conductor to conductor, channeling the lightning and overloading it. Once all conductors are overloaded, Normal phase begins again.

Ultraxion

Killing Hagara allows the aspects and Thrall to start their ritual with the Dragon Soul – but they will be interrupted by Deathwing and the corrupted Red Dragonflight. Protecting them from the Drakes allows the Dragon Soul to be used to deal a nmassive blow to Deathwing. However, he will call in his most powerful experiment, the unstable Twilight Dragon called Ultraxion.

Ultraxion has few real abilities that we as Shadowpriests should really mind – he’s mostly a massive DPS and healing check.

Everyone is pulled into the twilight realm, and you will receive a button called “Heroic Will” in the middle of the screen. If you do not, you can make a macro with the following text in it to achieve the same effect:

/click ExtraActionButton1

What it does is pull you out of the Twilight Realm for up to 5 seconds, or until either Hour of Twilight or Fading Light occurs. Then you are dragged back in the Twilight Realm. The ability has a 5 second cooldown. So if you want to avoid Hour of Twilight damage and use it 2 seconds before the end of the cast, you will be pulled back into the Twilight Realm after 2 seconds and have to wait 3 more seconds to use Heroic Will again. This bit is important for survivability.

First, Ultraxion does raid-wide AoE damage with his unstable purple lightnings. This damage increases as time goes on and he becomes more unstable.

Second, one of the tanks and a few random players get the Fading Light debuff. Once this expires you will die unless you are not in the Twilight Realm. So the tanks have to swap, and both the tank affected and the affected DPS must use Heroic Will to survive.

Third, every 45 seconds Ultraxion casts Hour of Twilight. This is a long cast-time AoE that will deal massive damage to all inside the Twilight Realm. Almost everyone should use Heroic Will to avoid the damage except for the current tank and 2 additional players which stay behind. Rotate people who soak the damage – Shadowpriests, Mages, Paladins, Hunters and Rogus with glyph of Feint are all good for it. If fewer than 3 people soak the damage, the aspects will take the hit and the raid will wipe soon after.

The aspects will help in various ways, but this only helps healers – Red buff for bigger heals, green buff for AoE heals and blue buff for Haste. We don’t care for it, obviously. However, Nozdormu will help the raid by using Time Loop on the raid at the 5th and 6th Hour of Twilight. At this time raid damage will be enormous – if you have the buff and die, you instead will be healed to full and lose the buff. In theory, you can skip death two times in the fight…and you will need it.

This is basically a hard burn phase where every drop of DPS counts. Pre-potting, Heroism at 35-25% and potting again at this time are all advised.

Blackhorn – Lootship 2

Warmaster Blackhorn rides Gariona, and the vestiges of the Twilight Hammer’s aerial forces attack the skyship with which you chase after Deathwing. The setup of the fight is simple in essence: kill everything before the ship is destroyed. The ship sometimes catches fire, stay out of it.

Gariona : drops Twilight Onslaught onto the ship (large pink circle) which the raid must stand in to share damage.
Assault Drakes: Drop adds on the deck and small fireballs which small groups of people must stand in to share damage. Must all be killed
Twilight Slayers and Twilight Dreadblade: big elites which charge (avoid the yellow lines in front of them) and need to be tanked seperately. Three waves must be killed of these.

Of note are Twilight Sappers, small goblins with explosives that jump on deck and rush for the cabin. They need to be killed asap, and fortunately can be slowed and stunned.

Priority for killing is: Sappers > Elite Adds > Drakes

Once three of these waves has been killed, Blackhorn jumps on deck for phase 2. He silences people close by and applies Sunder Armor (which requires a tank swap). He also uses Shockwave in a cone, which people need to move away from. Spread out a bit in small groups to keep up DPS on him. The more health he loses, the more damage he deals, so the last bit the damage he deals is massive and healers need to spam the tanks.

Gariona also joins the fight, and puts fires on the deck – avoid these. Generally it’s best to kill her first, since avoiding fire and shockwaves with tanks taking ever more damage is a major pain.

Conclusion

The first few encounters in Dragon Soul are not all that involved. Yor’ sahj the sleepless might take a few tries to get a feel for the events triggered by the combinations of oozes, and Zon’ ozz requires a bit of raid awareness as does Hagara. Ultraxion is simply a massive DPS check and calls for steady nerves (don’t panic and simply use Heroic Will when needed). Blackhorn’s encounter is quite easy to grasp – we didn’t get him down yet but that was because it was late and a new fight takes a bit of getting used to.

Next up will be Deathwing – where we check whether he really does have a spine, and find out what draco-demonic putty looks like!

The main trigger for this post is the recenly revealed class abilities on the Mists of Pandaria, where Warlocks, Druids and Death Knights get simply put awesome new abilities, while Priest talent-specific abilities are incomplete and – in many cases – incorrect or outdated. Add to that the fact that Shadowpriests gain 2 abilities in their specs which are mostly PvP, while losing 75% of all healing and raid utility, and you can imagine I’d like to see some change, some enthusiasm.

I’d like for Shadowpriests to no longer be forgotten and diminished for the sake of the “greater good of gameplay”.

I’d like for Shadowpriests to make sense thematically, balanced in gameplay and developed by people with love for this concept.

And finally, I’d like to stop the monopoly DKs/Warlocks have on abilities that are marginally evil-looking or have awesome graphics. For me, I’d like to hope that this is just a matter of ironing out some kinks, and not a lack of love from development. I mean, it’s quite alright if whoever is the Priest developer has little love for the Shadowpriest, or no idea what to do with us – but then at least use the immense resources of the player base for inspiration.

We love our specs, we love the game and we’re smart enough that sometimes Balance > Awesome. Shadowpriest bloggers, posters on the forums and the dedicated people at Shadowpriest.com are all hoping for a change for the better.

The purpose of a talent tree

The basic idea behind talent trees (and the choice of spec) is that it makes a meaningful difference in how you play the game. This difference can be quite startling (like the various Druid specs which are nothing alike, or we who profile ourselves as DPS in a primary healer-oriented class), based on role (such as the Paladin, Death Knight and Warrior tanking specs) or simply to denote the difference inside a single DPS class (rogues, mages, warlocks).

What is clear is that each of these specs has a clear theme. Affliction warlocks are all about DoTs and shadow damage, Demonology allows you to turn into a demon yourself, and Destruction is all about Nukes. Likewise, Arms warriors are controlled soldiers, Fury denotes a frothing risk-taking berserker and Protection is the tanking spec. With priests, Holy is all about the prayers and chakras, Discipline is all about shields and smites – while Shadow is, well, shadow-damage DPS.

The first step here is that we need to define clearly what a Shadowpriest is, and what it is not. A Shadowpriest is not a healer – they might provide Shields, but otherwise they hurt their enemies. The draw their power from the Shadow, based on vengeance and mental influence. The first thing that comes to my mind is an Inquisitor – one who purges the world of that which is not approved by their faith.

So what is it that we think of, with an inquisitor:

• Protects those who are allies, and bestows upon them the blessings of (the Light, the Shadow, the Old Gods, whatever)
• Punishes those who transgress, and converts those who can be saved
• Eliminates dangers to their allies, often by painful and horrific means

Quite a few of the abilities we have fall in this model: Mind Control, Psychic Horror, Silence, Vampiric Embrace, and Mind Vision all are abilities that would serve an Inquisitor well. The main damaging abilities (SW:Pain, SW:Death, Mind Flay, Mind Blast, Mind Sear) are all the kind of mental afflictions one would expect, so that’s all in order as well. In return, we bless our allies with Fortitude, physical strength. Check in the box.

Amount of abilities gained

Another angle to look from at the Shadowpriest is the number of available spells. If you count them, you will find that various classes have differing amounts of abilities. Shadowpriests under the new model will have 31 spells/abilities, including armor and weapon skills. Compare this to Arcane Mages (40+ not including teleports, portals and polymorph variants), Affliction Warlocks (50+ not counting Soulburn effects), Disc Priests (34+ not including missing Evangelism and Atonement), Balance Druids (45+ not including shapeshifts and feral abilities) and Unholy DKS (45+).

Judging from such numbers, it shows that we have some wiggle rooms with the amount of new abilities we could add before it becomes unbalanced number-wise. Even if fleshing out our concept adds 5-10 abilities, it still would be ok because we can’t use some of the abilities we actually have already.

Ability Synergy

In the Shadowpriest, there are currently a few synergies:

• SW:P and Mind Flay stack Shadow Orbs, which empower Mind Spike or Mind Blast
• Mind Flay stacks Evangelism, which can be consumed with Archangel
• Mind Blast cast with 1+ Shadow Orb triggers Empowered Shadows

So all in all, there are quite a few things that you as a player need to align for maximum damage. In MoP, Shadow Orb mechanics will change, which also influences Empowered Shadows (if it isn’t removed) – reducing our ramp-up time.

Roles and tasks

This is where things get a bit interesting. There is a profound difference between a Role and a Task. A Role signifies one of the three main roles tank, healer, DPS) which a player may perform. Task signifies a special ability that can be used for the benefit of the PvP group/raid that is not a stun, fear, silence, immobilize, etc. There are two reasons why I do not count these:

• They are often made part of the talent tree these days, for common class utility.
• There must be a benefit for PvE and PvP alike, although it is ok to be more useful in one setting over the other.

Good examples of such utility/task skills are:

• Mage: Portals/Teleports, Conjure Refreshment, Invisibility, Blink.
• Warlock: Demonic Circle, Demonic Portal, Summoning, Healthstone, Soulstone.
• Balance Druid: Battle Rez, Stampeding Roar, Knockback, Mushrooms.

So what would be interesting is to find, say, five abilities which fit with the Shadowpriest as an Inquisitor type, which are not overpowerd and prefereably not shared by another class. In addition, these need to be Utility abilities that do not (directly) impact DPS or PvP control. Sounds challenging? It is, actually. As I stated before, most of the ” semi-evil”  and “cool” abilities are part of the Warlock and Death Knight class, while most of the Shadow-related abilities are part of the Rogue.

A great miscellaney of zany ideas

The following ideas are based on the above concept. They are as unique as I could manage to imagine them, with as little duplicating existing abilities as I could (but it’s uunavoidable at some point). It’s just a collection of random brain-spinnings to indicate that there’s quite a few things that could be done with the Shadowpriest – and that we shouldn’t be relegated to being pet-less Affliction Warlocks.

Scapegoat: The Shadowpriest leaves behind a shadowy image of himself, which is a minion. This minion will receive all buffs and debuffs that the Shadowpriest had (except for encounter-specific ones that couldn’t be removed by an Immunity efffect), leaving the Shadowpriest without any. The Shadowpriest also drops all aggro as if he had cast Fade (and Fade is placed on cooldown if it wasn’t alredy). This basically is a defensive ability, where you may drop stacks of nastiness, DoTs and other effects at the cost of losing all your buffs as well (such as Fortitude, Brilliance, Tricks, Dark Intent, Focus, and so on). This is a mix of Cloak of Shadows (rogue) and Invisibility (mage).

An ability like this probably should have a reasonably lengthy cooldown, say 3 minutes or so, and cost a substantial amount of mana.  For a more raid-utility type spell, this spell could be altered to work on party members instead (but not the Shadowpriest).

Castigate: Reverses the power of Leap of Faith to target a single enemy target and knock it back in a straight line from you for the same distance. Shares a cooldown with Leap of Faith. This way, there’s a clear choice of bringing an ally to your side or to rebutt an enemy (and possibly knock him through traps and into friendly bruisers, depending on player skill). A controlled knockback would be a fresh change from AoE/Cone effects like Thunderstorm and Typhoon.

Alternately, this ability could be used to force two targets together that doesn’t include yourself. If such an ability only works on allies, then it might help to close gaps between raid members, while as an offensive ability it can be used to force people together who suffer from contagious debuffs.

Shadow Runes:  Rather than add more direct utility, you can re-balance some gained CC options by instead having a Shadowpriest be capable of placing a select few Shadow Runes (which are a bit like Hunter Traps and Druid Mushrooms) which can stun/root/fear/knockback when triggered – and an ability that allows the Shadowpriest to trigger them from a distance. This would allow (again) some more area control in PvE and PvP alike, and allows a Priest to make use of the battlefield to split up enemies or outrun them.

While similar to Hunter traps in this writeup, they probably wouldn’t be invisible. Another option regarding how such an environment-based playstyle might work out you could check the Demon Hunter from Diablo 3 or the Saboteur from RIFT.

Suffering: Just as an option for a masochistic class would be for a Shadowpriest to combine self-healing with sacrifice, requiring an amount of health to be sacrificed instead of mana. This is an unlikely option, since Blizzard seems determined to reduce the amount of self-damage effects. While I consider this a good thing (Baleroc + Tormented + <25% health = oneshot) one of the traits of the spec is that we don’t mind being hurt to hurt others instead.

Improving our self-healing or adding a self-rez (like the Shaman’s Reincarnate) would mitigate this factor somewhat. In fact, removing mana for Shadowpriests and replacing it with Agony instead, which is a balance between damage taken/done and sacrifice might do the trick to give us a unique way of play without adding tons of new abilities.

The following ideas are not unique – they are conversions from abilities that are present in other classes, but might make an interesting complement for a Shadowpriest. Of course, there would be a lot of qq regarding this, because all specs must be unique ” except for my own, which may borrow from other specs without issues”. You know how this works.

Shadow Crash: Like the Shadow Crash from General Vezax. A slow-moving small AoE effect would be welcome to round up and eliminate small groups of adds or punish flag-hugging PvPers. The damage shouldn’t be punative, but it has its uses to flush out stealthers (since Hunters can now stealth too) and area control.

Shadow of Death: I mentioned this type of conversion before in a previous post. It would be awesome to make Holy Fire a Shadow DD spell with a DoT, or make a Shadow-version of Divine Hymn which is a channeled close-range AoE effect. Hymn of Hope becomes Hymn of Despair, draining mana from enemy targets nearby. Another interesting damage technique would be a play on Arcane Blast – except that when adding up when you cast the spell, it adds up when you damage targets with it. Dark wellspring: like the good old Lightwell standby but providing mana instead of health.

Like Shadow Crash, it has the disadvantage that these would be considered DPS abilities – and how many of those do we need? We can see how little use Mind Spike sees today – even though it was hailed originally as “our new nuke”.

Sanctified Zone: Merging the concepts of Desecrated Ground (DK) and Vampiric Dominance (Priest), an interesting idea might be that a Shadowpriest places a shadowy zone on the ground, and the healing provided by Vampiric Embrace/Dominance would prefer targets inside the zone over those outside for its healing. This way, a Shadowpriest can decide to make “safe spots”  where people can go to get some minor heals (like the Lightwell does) and make the healing a bit more targeted.

Refurbished Boss abilities: Just because bosses once used it, doesn’t mean we can’t adapt it for use as a personal technique. Old gods-related or religious bosses are preferred targets for this effect. Just check this link here for the incredible variety on specific Shadow spell effects in the game. Some of these highlights which would make nice Shadowpriest spells include:

• Aegis of Ragnaros – a shield that absorbs damage and damages melee attackers
• Atrophy – reduces casting speed and attack speed
• Aura of Darkness – deal shadow damage to nearby targets
• Aura of Desire – damage taken when damage is dealt by the target
• Blackout – absorbs healing done and explodes if not removed, damage shared by nearby targets

Mana Burn option: Secondarily, Mana Burn is another controversial topic. While some clamor for its removal, it’s mostly a balancing issue I think. Even so, if anyone should have access to it, it would be a Shadowpriest. But making it so that casting it requires Shadow Orbs (effectively you must choose MB or MB – Mana Burn or Mind Blast) might make it easier to balance out by having it be comparable to Mind Blast in its overall effect.

Conclusion

What I have become convinced of that must be done is for developers to publicize a clear design philosophy and theme for the Shadowpriest other than “non-healer who uses shadow spells” now that the final nail in the coffin of the Mana Battery days seems to land. Only with that will facilitate a redesign of the spec for a proper amount of damage, utility and CC. There are probably tons more ideas that could be generated, and there will likely be opponents and proponents alike. What this is meant to illustrate is that the toybox is far from empty, and plenty ideas and concepts haven’t been tapped or tried out.